


Castiel Found

by cybergirl614



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Telepathy, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Castiel Angst, Castiel Does Not Understand, Castiel In Love, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel in Denial, Castiel's Handprint, Castiel/Dean Winchester Wing Kink, Dean Winchester in Denial, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Fluff, I Found, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Hell Dean, Profound Bond, Raised You From Perdition, Relationship(s), Romance, Self-Doubt, Slash, Songfic, Soul Bond, Torture, What Was I Thinking?, flashback sequences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:03:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4126386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybergirl614/pseuds/cybergirl614
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel reflects on the bond that was established when he touched Dean's soul in Hell.   He doesn't realize, however, that someone is listening in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finding Dean

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by several other works, including another fanfic, a fanvid, and the song, 'I Found' by Amber Run. The italicized lines are the lyrics, which will unfortunately be out of order as I rearranged them to reflect the narrative order.  
>  
> 
> More information on the influences for this work can be found in the end note. They're fantastic and completely worth the time, particularly the other fanfic that inspired the first chapter and the song.

Present Day: 

Castiel shifted where he sat, looking over at Dean, the gentle tune coursing through him. As he often did when Dean was asleep, he found himself wondering at how he had found the incredible man. The hunter had fallen asleep beside him, while they streamed music on Dean’s laptop kicked back on the couch. The Led Zeppelin playlist Dean insisted on showing him had ended and Castiel was about to close the computer when autoplay started and another song came on. 

The lyrics washed over him, playing in his mind in no particular order as the memories they evoked came to the surface. He found himself slipping into the mental space of angels, in which time was distorted and he roamed through memory.

_I found…_

Castiel wasn’t entirely sure when it had happened. He and hundreds of other angels had been instructed to lay siege to hell, that there was the soul of a righteous man to save. So they’d gone. They’d all gone, hundreds, hundreds of them. They’d poured into the pit, the air ripe with sulfur, ripped by the screams of the condemned. Creatures: both the twisted souls of the damned and the jaws of the beasts that dwelled there in the pit alike, had clawed up, torn at his wings, snatched his brethren from the air as they flew, but Castiel had kept going. He’d swung and stabbed with his sword, and smote with a touch, but never stopped, never paused. He always kept going, towards that tiny glowing beacon in the impossible distance, the soul he and the hundreds of others were homing in on.

Castiel had flown for months, and months blurred into years. Years, of sulfur and foul-smelling breath of beasts and burning hot updrafts from the volcanic spires that marred the floor of Hell snatching at his wings, and the cries of the condemned searing their way into their mind. His body grew heavy and his powers, his grace itself, it seemed, dimmed. He could nearly feel the darkness of the pit corrupting him. It would have been so easy to let the exhaustion seep from his bones and still his limbs, still his swinging blade, bog him down and let the creatures of the pit bring him to an end.

But when he began to consider this, the inevitability of a defeat at the hands of the creatures of Hell, he felt a flare of desperation from the soul somewhere beyond the distant horizon. Even in the midst of the smog and darkness and foulness there in the pit, it beckoned, cried out to him. Perhaps it was just the fact that he was somewhere so corrupt and dirty, but that tiny glimmer of something good inspired an awe he hadn’t before felt. It needed him. The righteous man needed him—with that knowledge as a boon, he steeled him to the pain and exhaustion and plowed on through the torturous depths.

 

As he drew nearer, he felt its cries grow stronger. They resonated inside of him, tearing at the depths of his grace, stirring an intensity he barely knew what to do with. The desperation of its screams were not just physical but spiritual. Castiel circled now as he finally converged on the soul, his wings bone-weary. He tried to get a glimpse past the wafts of sulfuric dust that whirled on the volcanic plumes, but he could not see below them. Instead he focused on the pull it exerted on his grace, the excruciating pain emanating from that being making him almost want to pull away. Yet he couldn’t. Need, it needed him, so horribly and completely, the intensity of the need was overwhelming, even for a being as old and powerful as Castiel. He drew in a breath, setting his jaw, uncertainty prickling inside him at what he might find, and dove.

Down, through the dark volcanic plumes of ash and the sulfuric dust, down, towards the howling beasts and the torture yard where the soul struggled—he landed on a dank, rotten floor rank with blood and untold other unseemly substances, righting himself so he didn’t fall into the mess that squelched at his feet.

As he landed, a creature lashed out a Castiel, with claws that soon fell and sank slowly into the dank mess of the floor of Hell, swiftly dismembered by his sword.

Castiel now surveyed the scene before him, searching again for the glimmer of that soul, which now that he was so close, seemed to be all around him. He glanced over the lines of souls chained to the rack, but it wasn’t there among the tortured—he turned, face wrinkling in consternation when he realized it stood before him now, a gaunt husk, gore and filth clinging to its skeletal limbs, far more animalistic and demonic than human, more a thing than a human soul. He wasn't sure how something so ravaged by Hell could possibly shine out so brightly. The soul grinned. It was a feral look that shook Castiel, almost as much as the sight of it holding a wickedly curved knife in its hands, still dripping blood from its victims. It squeezed it so tightly the sickly flesh of its fingers blanched white and began to turn blue, hefting it as if to menace the angel as it fell back a few stumbling steps along the line of chained souls, as if deciding what to make of the newcomer in its awful domain.

Castiel felt something inside him twinge at the sight.

 

“I am here to save you,” Castiel shouted, his voice a command and a declaration, of salvation that rang above the screams of the tortured souls and horrible creatures around them. Yet the pathetically torn soul didn’t seem to find it so.

“You sure about that, you feathery asshole?” The soul demanded.

“I am. It was commanded by God.”

“Some ‘God,’” The soul sneered, lunging forwards to strike.

Castiel easily knocked away the weapon, prompting the soul to scramble about wildly, lashing out at Castiel with its fingernails. Its recoiled violently as touching the flesh of the angel singed its own skin, the might of the angel, whose flesh it couldn’t tear at without singing its own skin. It ducked away between the lines of it victims.

 

Victims that bore the marks of the blade it had held, Castiel noted with a quiet revulsion. Was he too late? Was this the soul he was meant to save? Castiel couldn’t help but wonder. Yet now it scampered away, wordless cries echoing. Its growls tore the air, not so empty but beseeching, in agony, and afraid.

Despite whatever it said or did, it needed him, and moreover, he had been commanded to retrieve it.

“Be still,” Castiel commanded, reaching for the cowering soul. It skittered away but he moved after it quickly, his fingers closing around its shoulder, where the flesh sizzled at the contact. It screamed, but he placed another hand to its forehead to still its struggling with the effects of his grace. Yet he never got so far as inducing the sleep he had meant to. Touching the soul, he felt its pain and terror wash over him, blindingly vivid and bitter. Although he’d never felt such a thing before, he wished absently that he could give something in return, some way to dispel its panic. But he didn’t know how, so he offered what he best knew.

“I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord,” he explained again, this time quieter, as he didn’t have to shout over the cries of the creatures as the soul was near him, still shaking in his grasp. “I was sent to save you. Do you understand?”

It only nodded, still quivering as anger began to show in its eyes, vehement enough Castiel could feel it radiating from where he held onto its arm.

“Why me? Why now? Haven’t you angels waited long enough?!” It spat the words.

“Heaven sent us as soon as possible,” Castiel replied tersely. This didn’t seem to satisfy the soul, however, as its face creased with consternation, the emotions wafting off of it reflecting much the same.

“Yeah, right. You angels….you freaking angels,” it groaned, a small shiver of bitterness growing in its voice and being.

“We do not have time to speak here,” Castiel observed, his tone urgent. “More beasts are approaching.”

“Yeah, let them,” the soul grumbled, rolling its eyes. Castiel felt despondency mixing with the bitterness and confusion now.

“I will not let them. You are coming with me,” Castiel said resolutely.

“Who says?” the soul flashed a spiteful grin, which had to be a ploy, because all Castiel could feel coming from inside it was pain and hurt and anger and fear. So much, broiled into one mess that it didn't seem this one soul could possibly contain. And Castiel had never felt anything else like this.

Castiel shook his head, tightening his grip on the soul’s arm, repeating himself, although softer this time. “You are coming with me.”

He didn’t give the broken soul time to protest, either. He pulled it into his arms and flared his mighty wings, baring them aloft into the smoky plumes that blacked out the searing light that permeated Hell.

The soul collapsed against him, its battered, corpselike hands finding purchase on his shoulders as he flew. Normally the sight of such a corrupted soul should have been disgusting, but this one, the need, the pain, he couldn’t push it away. He pulled it closer in his arms as it buried its face against his chest. He dodged and shielded them both, his prior exhaustion all but forgotten with the boon of the soul in his arms, its damaged but fierce presence giving him renewed purpose and an overwhelming sense of urgency.

He flew as quickly as he could, feeling a subtle power seeping from the soul in his grip, or rather, around him—it was clining to him desperately as if he was life itself, and he realized, he was, its one lifeline from this brutal existence. And somehow, it seemed to know this.

Castiel stole a glance at the pathetic creature in his arms, his fingers tightening around the gaunt ribs barely covered by tattered clothing. There was much to do, but for now, they had to get somewhere safe….

*

At long last, he hauled them both out of the edge of Hell, stumbling into the flaring silver light that was the portal back to Heaven, guarded by a scattered dozen of his brethren. Castiel collapsed into their embrace, the boon of their graces bearing them aloft.

Still, as he lapsed into the ecstasy of being at Heaven’s door at long last, the power flooding him as it rapidly recharged the depths of his grace, he was aware of the clinging form of the terrified, filthy soul in his arms. They were ushered into a side chamber reserved for the arduous task ahead of Castiel’s, and moreover, the soul’s recovery. Yet even in the safety of the vaulted halls of Heaven, the stench of darkness Hell had shoved into its innumerable wounds was only underscored by the contrast. It in fact, looked even more terrified. When Castiel's brothers approached, ostensibly to take the soul, they sneered with disgust as their eyes roved across it. Castiel had the presence of mind to speak up, dispelling his brothers’ reluctant efforts with a quiet but firm, “Please, allow me to finish this task.”

His brothers looked at each other questioningly and then shrugged, mumbling assent and agreement with his assessment, a few going so far as to look openly relieved. Castiel thought he caught something of their hushed tones as they reatreated, sullen and condescending snatches of “Nasty thing, I’m glad I don’t have to touch it,” and “Fine. Let him, better he stays with it.”

Castiel felt rage snap within him, wrapping his hand possessively around the form in his arms, anger broiling in his eyes.

“How dare you? This righteous man who we were sent by our Father to save! I wish to heal him myself, but how dare you deride the creation of our Father, who deigned him worthy of the lives of hundreds of our brothers and sisters?!”

“That thing is barely reminiscent of a man anymore—“ Uriel protested, a disgusted look twisting his face.

The soul in Castiel’s arms tensed and hissed at the other angel’s statement, which it had clearly heard, but Castiel shook his head, hushing it, whispering, “I will take care of this. Rest now.”

“Uriel! You are treading a thin line, brother. Go and be useful elsewhere. I best not hear such things from you again.” Castiel admonished. Uriel reluctantly ducked, his expression still oozing disdain as he left them.

Now alone, Castiel began to try to tease the soul off of himself.

“You are safe now. We are in Heaven. “ Castiel soothed, but the soul shook its head, sullenly refusing to speak or otherwise move.

“You—you are a righteous man, you are going back to Earth. You’ve been given a second chance, don’t you understand?” Castiel tried again.

The soul opened its eyes, snorting. “Yeah, right.”

“So you will speak. You can let go of me now, or else I suppose I could force you if I have to,” Castiel replied, which made the soul tense with fright. He immediately regretted having said that, trying to give it some measure of reassurance.

“Or….or….you can take your time,” he added dumbly.

“No, no…” it babbled hoarsely, loosening its hold on him as it sank to its knees on the floor, looking so broken Castiel didn’t know what to do. So he sat down in front of it, putting his hands on its shoulders.

“I...What happens now?” it asked hoarsely.

“Now I put you back together,” Castiel replied.

“Who are you even? Why are you doing this?” The soul asked again.

“You already know I am an angel. I was among hundreds sent to save you. I suppose…humans such as you like names, don’t you? My name is Castiel.” Castiel offered. “What is yours?”

“Dean Winchester,” the soul breathed, although it came out low and despondent, as if tinged with some weight of significance. Dean was looking away, his head bowed as he crouched there, shaking, a husk of a soul smudged with the darkness of Hell so out of place in the glory of Heaven.

“Dean Winchester,” Castiel echoed, trying the sound out, and finding he liked how it flowed from his mouth. “I am to make you whole again. Are you ready?”

Dean looked up at his face, and Castiel saw his face was streaked with tears that cut through the grime and gore that still smeared his face.

It shouldn’t have bothered Castiel so much, but he was taken aback by almost everything about this incredible conundrum of a broken man in front of him, and as usual, he was uncertain what to make of this, as well. Except it…hurt, seeing him like this. He wanted to help, even if he wasn’t certain how.

“Dean. Please. This must be done, but is there anything I can….do, otherwise….to…to help you?” Castiel stumbled over the words, foreign as the idea itself was to him.

“No. There’s nothing you can do. Just…get it over with.” Dean closed his eyes and lay back on the floor, prone and seeming altogether far too vulnerable to contain the intensity of emotion Castiel knew him to have.

Castiel nodded solemnly, calling the depths of his grace for the powers he needed, and began to work Dean’s soul over, the white-hot glow of his grace pulsing and shining out blindingly as he thrust new life into Dean’s soul.

 

Dean gasped as the probe of his power entered his being through Castiel’s outstretched hand. Panic ripped through the battered soul at first contact with the tremendous power, but then he relaxed as Castiel retracted a bit, smiling down into Dean’s face.

“I—“ Castiel began, something inside him twisting as Dean opened his eyes, their brilliant green the only thing so far about him that seemed still truly alive in the battered husk of his soul. “I will be careful. It should not be painful. I am to remake you to the full beauty of my Father’s creation.”

Dean nodded wordlessly, closing his eyes again as the angel set to work.

First Castiel surveyed the damage, delicately tracing every open sore and negative space left where Hell had rotted through areas of Dean’s soul. Then came the difficult part; debriding the sullied areas. Although he could have just raked through and cut away what needed to go, Castiel didn’t want to hurt Dean. Instead he worked slowly, simultaneously healing the raw areas to spare Dean needless suffering as he removed the necrosis. When that was done, he again explored the wounds. Now he worked over every scarred spot, starting with the deepest gutted parts, regenerating the vital essences, slowly working his way out to the flayed-open wounds where he wove new substance to fill the voids of the shredded soul.

When he was finished, Castiel sat back, admiring the work he had done.

Dean was presently just a soul. His body also had to be rebuilt, but at the moment, Castiel could only marvel at the incredible sight of the soul of a man he beheld, nearly glowing in the light that filtered down. The finesse of the form before him, he couldn’t help but think, seemed to better fit the great richness of emotion that whorled inside this magnificent, if battered being. Castiel thought he might understand why his Father so loved his creations. He hadn’t even made Dean, only repaired him, and he still felt an overwhelming appreciation of the intricacy and fragility of the yet powerful human soul.

“What?” Dean grunted as he opened his eyes, realizing Castiel had finished. He sat up slowly, stretching awkwardly as if having a complete soul was an unfamiliar sensation, and absently, Castiel supposed it was. He had spent what to him would have to have been decades in Hell, being slowly ripped to shreds over and over.

“You’re…beautiful,” Castiel replied sheepishly, clearing his throat.

“If everything is to your liking, I will return you to where you were buried and rebuild your body now,” the angel continued.

“Yeah, that’s fine, I guess,” Dean shrugged sadly, a darkness glinting in his eyes that Castiel feared he couldn’t remove. He knew he’d left none of Hell’s damage in the structure of Dean’s soul. No, this was something he couldn’t heal. And whether he knew how to properly acknowledge it, the thought pained him.  
Dean glanced down over his soul, pausing to run his fingers over his upper arm where Castiel’s red emblazoned handprint remained.

“What…what’s that?” Dean asked slowly.

“My grace, it burned you,” Castiel explained, his tone vaguely apologetic, “When I first touched you.”

“Oh. That’s…that’s fine. I don’t care about the scar of whatever. I deserve…a lot worse,” Dean said quietly, only a little of the pain that Castiel knew permeated his being seeping out into his voice.

“No, no you don’t,” Castiel found himself protesting, without having to think about what he was saying. “You deserve much better. I can heal it now, or—“

“Don’t bother,” Dean replied, shaking his head. “I don’t…I don’t care.”

His words were low, and Castiel could imagine, carried far more meaning than simply referring to the mark on his arm. He hardly needed confirm this by delving into the mental connection he held with the soul. Instead he didn’t bother, not wanting to undergo that flood of emotion again just now, when he needed to focus on the task at hand.

“Dean. I have to rebuild your body as well now,” Castiel said softly.

“Fine. If…you have to. But, I don’t deserve that. I don't deserve a damn thing.” Dean murmured, shaking his head.

“But you have to. It has been commanded.”

“Fine. Do it. Put me back…” Dean said blankly, weariness written in his features.

Castiel nodded, touching the human soul on the forehead to render him unconscious as he moved to return him to his body, which he would restore where it was buried in the woods of rural Illinois.

Castiel dove through the soil of the grave, in a transdimensional state, pouring his power into the dead and decaying cells, struggling to shape the wasted corpse into a vessel worthy of the soul in his charge. He breathed life into them, eradicated the stench of decay and willed the tissues to rejuvenate. At long last after hours of labor, he felt the body warm under his ministrations, and with a small jolt of power, he induced the heart to pump, to see if everything worked properly. He was pleased to see that it did. He stilled it again, deciding the dormant body was ready for its occupant. All that was left now was to deposit the soul. He released Dean’s unconscious soul, letting it snap back into place. For an instant, his eyes glowed blue-white, and a brilliant red handprint glowed on his bicep.

Castiel gave another small jolt of power, setting the heart back in motion, willing the lungs to inflate and the brain to crackle with activity. An inexplicable relief filled him to see Dean at home in his body. He had done well.

Then Dean’s eyes flew open, his hand fumbling in his pocket. He coughed, rasping as he struggled about in the darkness of the coffin his body rested in.

He didn’t recognize Castiel’s presence, the angel could tell from the thoughts and residual emotion that wafted off of him through their connection. Terror flowed cold in his veins as he pulled a lighter from his pocket, frantically jerking about as he realized where he was and what had happened. He clearly no longer remembered his salvation. Dean began to struggle to fight his way free of the coffin and Castiel, not about to let him suffocate, helped him along. Castiel loosened nails in the wood, and lessened the weight and density of the soil over Dean as he worked his way free.

 

_Love._

 

As Dean broke the surface, his hands raised as he struggled out, Castiel felt another angel contacting him, calling him away. Reluctant, Castiel conceded and left the soul of Dean Winchester as the mortal body it now inhabited wormed its way free of the earth. As much as Castiel wanted to stay, he had things to do in Heaven, as his brother told him. Just before he left, he froze an image of Dean’s newly reconstructed face in his memory as the sunlight hit it. In all his days, even over millennia of existence, Castiel didn’t think he’d seen anything that compared to that haunted beauty.

 

 

_Where it wasn’t supposed to be._

 

Although Castiel was not yet cognizant of the depth of what he felt for this soul, he knew something inside him had changed. For the first time in all his experience, he wanted to be elsewhere, wanted to be doing something else, even as he was called back to Heaven for a meeting with his superiors.  Right now, if he was entirely honest with himself, he wanted nothing more than to be near Dean.  

 

And the very thought of it was foreign to him. He was an angel of the Lord, a warrior who fought without reservation and smote the wicked and delivered the innocent. He did so not of his own volition or out of any emotion but out of raw obedience. He obeyed when he was commanded, and worshipped when it was due.   That was what he was made for, that was what his role was.   Perhaps this was why the emotion that had roiled off of Dean into his consciousness had unsettled him so. He’d simply never experienced anything like it, he told himself.   Even then, it seemed a strange thing, because the unnatural desires he felt taking hold were not Dean’s. They were his own.  He felt a new emotion at this change inside himself; fear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj6V_a1-EUA
> 
> songvid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM-8u2LEXRM
> 
> fanfic that inspired the first chapter: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7700480/1/Set-Me-Free


	2. Being Used

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel's POV Lazarus Rising: Following Dean on Earth, Castiel finds himself bewildered by the human emotions he encounters as he struggles to make sense of them and interact on a level they can understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part of a songfic. The italicized line at the beginning is from the song 'I Found' by Amber Run.

_I’ll use you…_

Castiel left the meeting with his superiors, a renewed rage washing over him. He wanted to be near Dean, and oddly enough his superiors had deigned to give him just that assignment. He would have been pleased with that, except what was revealed to him over the course of the meeting was staggering. Dean was not free. Dean, certainly, as it had just been explained to him, was indeed a righteous man. But what he’d been doing in Hell? He’d made a bargain with a demon to save his brother, Samuel Winchester, the boy with demon blood who was destined to be a force for darkness.

And Dean… Dean had tortured in Hell, as Castiel had seen for himself, when he discovered the husk of a soul standing over his victims on the racks, brandishing the knife. That wasn’t what bothered the angel,. What did, however, was when Castiel learned that Dean had broken the first seal to Lucifer’s Cage, the first seal along a string of many others, of which 66 would be broken and lead to the apocalypse. Although Castiel knew this was an inevitability, that the apocalypse was coming, and that Dean was to be used as a force for Heaven.

Against all rationality, the thought of Dean being embroiled in the middle of it unsettled him. It made him feel….indignant, even, the idea of such an amazing man being pulled down in this battle of his siblings. But he pushed it aside as best he could. He was assigned to go make sure Dean was alright, and to deliver a message. He set off to fulfill his task.  
And maybe, just maybe, he hoped against hope, he might be able to find a way to help Dean in so doing.

*

He set off again for the place he’d left Dean to struggle from his grave. Not finding Dean there, he scanned for the human’s presence in the immediate vicinity, and was rewarded with the revelation that he hadn’t gone very far—he was in a gas station up the road a bit. Castiel flew there as quickly as he could, uncertainty gripping him.

He had orders to carry out, but it had never been specified when, precisely, so he decided to hang back a bit and just watch.

Dean was sputtering at a sink, splashing water on his face. Castiel hovered outside the window, in a frequency well above human awareness, simply observing. He watched as the human pulled up his shirt sleeve, anxiety palpable in the air around him as he traced the handprint on his upper arm. He recoiled from the brand on his arm like it had burnt his hand just to touch it. The awe and dread that permeated Dean gripped Castiel, almost viselike as Dean relived a snatch of the terrors he’d been delivered from. As Castiel silently zoomed in on his thoughts, he too experienced the singeing pain as Alistair flayed Dean alive, the lostness, and the hatred that had broiled inside the human. Then as quickly as it had come, it was gone, leaving Dean shaking where he stood, gripping the edges of the sink. In place of those memories, Castiel felt a mounting fear that seemed to roil from within the human, and an anger as well. What was this, the angel wondered. Was this directed at Castiel? The rawness of the emotion staggered him. He didn’t know how to process it, yet somehow despite the overload, he felt the drive to do something. He was torn between wanting to call out, still reeling from the shared recollections of the horrors of Hell, but the natural inclination of an angel to remain uninvolved cemented by the precedence set by millennia of quiet observation. So instead he just watched, trying to shake off the foreign sensations that assaulted him from his connection with the human, and remained in place, unseen outside the window.

He saw Dean move around the store, grabbing bags from the register. He began raiding the shelves, depositing candy bars in the bag with a satisfied grin. He then moved to a cooler and began pulling out bottles of water. Castiel merely looked on with mild confusion, his mind still hazed by the deluges of emotion that the connection with the human had unwittingly subjected him to.

Dean moved to a magazine stand, picking up an adult selection. He flipped through it with a debauched grin before depositing it too in the bag. This was really a righteous man? Castiel’s confusion mounted. Perhaps he was a righteous man, but as he moved towards the register, where he removed a large stash of bills, Castiel couldn’t help but think he was on a less-than-righteous path. He felt Dean’s amusement and cheap pleasure at the worldly items he was accruing, but underneath that superficial charm of materialism lay a dark void. One cut out by Alistair in Hell and demons of Dean’s own conscience. Ones Castiel felt eating away at Dean through the pull the human’s emotions exerted on him. Dean was trying to cover it, he could tell, but it wasn’t working.

Castiel was swamped again with an alien desire to call out. Dean needed help. Castiel had never done this before; never tried to talk to a human, and he had no vessel yet, and there was a chance Dean might not understand him. But watching the broken human floundering about, he didn’t have it in him not to at least try.

He reached out with his grace, tentatively, trying to make some form of contact without overwhelming him. Maybe Dean would feel his presence. Instead, with his first clumsy foray into interaction, Castiel only managed to turn the television on, making the human startle. Dean swatted the set frantically, displeasure apparent as it flowed off of him. Castiel felt something new; disappointment. He exerted another push, this time wondering if he could speak via the electronics. He triggered the radio intentionally now, but before he could figure out how to get his voice down to a human-hearing level, Dean turned it too off. Now he grabbed salt from a shelf and began dumping it in a haphazard line along the window. As if a simple salt line could impede an angel of the Lord. Castiel would have laughed if he had much more sense of humor.

Groaning with frustration at the obliviousness of the human, Castiel decided he should just try speaking normally in his celestial voice. Perhaps a direct approach was warranted.

His true voice rang out quietly. “Dean?” he whispered.

The angel boggled as the human groaned, fear radiating as he continued his ludicrous salt trick.

Castiel called out, louder this time. “It is me, Castiel! I’m the one who saved you. You don’t remember me, but you have nothing to fear—“

He broke off as he realized Dean had sunk to the floor, clutching his head.

Castiel felt something inside himself rend at the sight. “No, no, Dean!” he tried again desperately. But it was too much, he realized an instant too late. The glass of the window was cracking---he tried to stabilize it but it was already shattering. It rained down around the quivering human, making small cuts on his previously unmarred skin. Castiel fled, disgust at his own ineptitude burning inside of him.  
He could try again later, he supposed. For now, he would search out a vessel.

 

*  
He swept about for a while searching for a vessel, with moderate luck. He spoke to a man for a bit who sounded promising, but he was interrupted by a summoning. It was a psychic who demanded his name. He replied, irritation at the interruption of his efforts making him short with her. As if to top it off, she foolishly refused to obey his warnings, blinding herself in the process. He didn’t care for her plight, however. He had far greater concerns, and orders to fulfill.

Castiel returned to Heaven to seek the advice of his brothers. Upon their recommendation, he attempted to contact Dean while he was asleep, but his true voice was still too loud. The human awoke in a terror, the ceiling mirror crashing to bits around him as Castiel’s voice rang out.

In defeat, Castiel left to make the final selection of his vessel.

*

He found a willing participant in the form of a troubled man who had been praying for a change in his life. It was the same one from before. He only had to perform a few minor miracles to convince him. He allowed the man to stick his hand into boiling water without harm. Castiel visited and spoke to him several times before he finally said yes, asking only assurances his family would be safe. Castiel offered the assurances he asked thoughtlessly. Of course they would be ‘safe.’ He was a righteous man performing a service to Heaven. Whatever became of their physical forms, the man had earned himself and his family a place in paradise. Was that not all anyone could ask, Castiel wondered as he descended into the man.

*

Much to Castiel’s displeasure, he was again summoned a short time later.  
The place he was called to was a large abandoned barn, where, to his surprise, he felt Dean’s presence. He descended quickly, deciding not to hold back. Dean needed to understand who he was, and it appeared the human had also been seeking him out.

He called out with his true voice, hearing the crash of thunder behind him and the rippling of wind about him as he approached the barn doors. He sensed fear and awe from the human, which he tried to block out. It was just too much, it was unnatural for an angel to be subjected to, and his brothers had warned him not to get caught up in it. He just had to ignore it, and prove his power to Dean. According to his brothers, the nuisance of emotion would fade from his mind with time if he let it. Castiel had resolved that he would.

He threw the doors open, deliberately crossing the entry way. To his amusement, he saw numerous traps drawn about in paint on the floor and walls. There were traps for demons, traps for spirits, traps from every major belief system in the world. His brothers were right, he acknowledged. These humans were so tiny in their thinking. Uriel would have laughed if he was there. Castiel struggled to focus on that instead of the terror that he could feel from Dean.

Dean and another man stood agape in the center of the room for a moment as his silhouette was highlighted by lightning. Then they began loosing rounds from shotguns at Castiel. The rounds pounded against his vessel, but Castiel merely kept walking. They were nothing, nothing at all to an angel. Perhaps seeing this would confirm to Dean that he was of Heavenly origin. Perhaps….

He approached the center of the room, stopping before Dean, who positively oozed disdain and fear.

“Who are you?” Dean’s words were edged with what Castiel knew to be fear and anger.

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition,” he replied, hoping perhaps something would register in the human’s mind. He remembered Hell, after all. Why did he not remember Castiel as well? Something in the angel twinged as Dean smirked, muttering bitterly “Well that’s freaking great.”  
With that, he sunk a knife deep into Castiel’s chest, his face falling as he ducked away. Castiel could hear the scrape of its blade against his vessel’s ribs as Dean struck.

Castiel just stared for a moment, struggling not to laugh. He didn’t want to move too quickly, he didn’t want to cause Dean further alarm. At this rate, he would have to use his powers to sedate Dean before he could get any meaningful level of communication. Sighing, he plucked the blade from his chest effortlessly, and dropped it to the floor. The sneaking suspicion that his brothers were wrong was growing on him. Dean’s fear was not waning, he noted. If anything, it was intensifying, and turning towards anger.

He sighed again as he realized the man behind him was striking now. He turned grabbing the man’s weapon before he dispatched him to unconsciousness easily with a touch. The man fell to the floor out of the way.

Dean backed up a bit again, tension rolling off of him in waves.

Castiel raised his hands placatingly, insisting, “We need to talk, Dean. Alone.”

Even with the incredibly uneasy human in front of him, Castiel couldn’t help but feel a small measure of pride. Dean could understand him. The attacks aside, this was progress.

“Like hell we do,” Dean snapped, rushing to the man’s side, probing at his neck.

“You can stop worrying,” Castiel assured dryly, “He’s merely asleep.” He wished he could get Dean to focus. His emotions were all over the place. The anger had peaked to panic, but was now easing back into a seething mixture of irritation, curiosity, and skepticism.

 

“OK, let me guess. Castiel,” Dean quipped.

“Correct,” the angel replied, a frustration growing inside him that echoed Dean’s. This was not going nearly so well as he’d hoped. He was speaking in a manner he could understand. Why wouldn’t Dean just be quiet and listen?

“Well that’s great. You’re the freak who burned that woman’s eyes out,” Dean’s voice dripped the same disdain that Castiel could sense around him. So much emotion. It roiled inside Castiel as well now, making him even shorter than he was predisposed to be.

“I am an angel of the Lord,” he corrected dryly.

Dean snorted. “Yeah, right.” Doubt and anger surged now. Castiel couldn’t help but feel them too. Still, he had a job. He shook his head, simultaneously trying to rid himself of the things the human projected as he admonished, “Maybe you’d believe if you gave yourself the chance.” With that, he revealed the might of his wings to Dean, who gaped, trembling slightly in awe of the angel.

Awe. That was more like what his brothers had assured him he was owed. Except something in it sat wrong with Castiel. He thought he liked the anger better. This awe, this fear… It made him nearly uncomfortable as it did Dean, although he couldn’t begin to say why. He deserved nothing less. It was…natural. So why did it feel wrong?

“Alright. So you’re an angel.” Dean conceded reluctantly, “But really, dude, you go around doing that sort of shit for the fun of it or something? What’s wrong with you?”

Castiel could only shake his head. He took the admonishment like a kick in the gutt, although it was entirely the opposite of what he should have felt at it. He should have felt disdain. He should have shown his power and demanded respect, but instead he felt the need to justify himself.

He frowned, explaining, his voice tinged with disappointment, although whether more at himself or at Dean, he couldn’t have said.

“I attempted to warn her away. It was not my fault. As for the other incidents, I suppose it was my own indiscretion. I thought perhaps you could withstand my true visage, but I suppose my true voice was too much for you.” Why had he thought that, though? A man rescued from Hell, certainly, was special, in a sense but he wasn’t that special. Why had Castiel hoped so badly that he could?

“Your true visage? So then what are you doing, wearing some freaking tax accountant?” Dean cracked, eyes glimmering. Something else rolled off of him now, amusement, Castiel noted. Although he shouldn’t have, he felt a shared amusement mingling with the confusion at the human’s joke, which went over his head.

“This is a vessel,” he replied simply, still not sure why anything Dean had said was funny, or why he cared enough to find it funny as well.

“Great, just great. You’re an angel that goes around burning out peoples’ eyes and possessing innocent people. Some freaking angel you are!” Dean’s tone was accusing now, and disdain spiked around him.

“Angels cannot possess a vessel without permission,” Castiel explained, more sheepish than defensive. “He made the decision to accept me of his own volition.” Still, the accusation stung more than he was comfortable admitting to himself. Far more than it should have, which was to say, not at all. Who was a mere human to question him?

“Sure, yeah. And I was born yesterday,” Dean griped, glaring at Castiel, whose head spun at the development. Just when he thought he’d been making progress…

“No, you were not.” It was Castiel’s turn to feel frustration again. He couldn’t say he liked feeling it as much when it was his own instead of Dean’s.

“Wow, they don’t teach sarcasm in Heaven, do they?” Dean scoffed. “But just so you know, I’m not taking this crap at face value, OK?” Doubt poured off of Dean again, and Castiel wanted nothing but to reassure him.

“Dean, please listen to me. You have been saved. It is for a higher purpose, God’s purpose.” He offered the words with a desperation that an angel wasn’t supposed to possess.

“Huh. Well then I’d like to know why me. Out of everybody in Hell. Why am I the one worth saving?” He felt anger and hurt coming from him, bitterness etched in his face and his voice.

“It was commanded. I do not know fully, I do not make the decisions, I merely carry them out. But you are part of a higher plan, and Heaven needs you.” Castiel replied. Those were the right reasons. Those were the good reasons. But there were other reasons, if he’d been able to acknowledge them. Dean was incredible, Dean was a conundrum. His soul, as battered as it was, was the tiny but unwavering light that had shone out across all of Hell calling to the angel. He would have gone to him even if it had been against orders, because he was the one thing in all his millennia of living that Castiel had seen that was different.

Perhaps there was something wrong with him for it, but Castiel was utterly fascinated.

Again, Castiel felt his brothers calling him back towards Heaven.

“I must go, Dean,” he said, disappointment tinting his voice. “But I will return soon. Do not forget. Heaven needs you.”

With that he departed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to put a spin on canon without losing the essence of it, including a complete rewrite of the dialogue. By all means let me know if it does or doesn't work out that way. I've written mostly crossovers, so working with events squarely in canon, particularly in this much detail, is relatively new territory for me.


	3. As A Warning Sign pt1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel is assigned to Dean, but the things he does on orders are hurting Dean, and he can barely stand it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken soooo long to update. I have several stories going, because well of course I do, I get plot bunnies like it's going out of style. This story in itself was a plot bunny that distracted me from other stories. I have an issue with this. What can I do but write them? Some of them turn out pretty well. lol That, and this chapter is shaping up to be helluva long one. So I decided to break it in two, just for like, sanity's sake.

_As a warning sign._

 

It had been some weeks since he had met Dean, and Castiel’s sense of fascination was blooming into something even stranger.   He tried to tamp it down, tried to deny it to himself and others alike, but it wouldn’t budge.   He had taken to saying harsh things he didn’t remotely believe, desperate to convince himself whatever it was he had with Dean Winchester wasn’t there.   But it wasn’t working.  He longed to see the man whose battered soul shone out through green eyes that he had breathed the life back into, whose voice, however bitter it sounded, was laced with a desperation that was intoxicating to behold.  Forgetting that desire wasn’t possible, no matter how hard he tried.  And the worst was, Uriel was beginning to notice.  

 

Castiel had not seen Dean besides once in a dream in a few Earth weeks.   Even then, his visit had been brief, his disclosure sudden and entirely businesslike.  He had urgent news to bring, of the nature of the Witnesses.   His superiors had not told him to bring the news to Dean, but as soon as he’d realized what was happening to the hunter, he’d been unable to stop himself from contacting him.   When he appeared, Dean had been abrupt, jostling as to why he hadn’t told him sooner. As if he hadn’t wanted to!  He had come as soon as he knew, as soon as he possibly could. Angels were dying in droves in the war, and he was doing all he could.  Yet this wasn’t enough.  Guilt, and confusion prickled inside him. The level of the emotional connection with Dean in the dream was overwhelming, with Castiel staring straight into his soul.   Dean’s disappointment bit at him, his anger clouded his mind.   Castiel found himself stewing in the human’s anger, although it was not directed at Dean but rather at himself.   This combined with the denial he was trying to maintain, making him default to a harsh tone. “I dragged you out of hell,” he said with a menacing voice, the voice of wrath.  Wrath he didn’t feel, wrath he knew he himself deserved. What was happening to him?   Angels did not _feel_ , not like this, not for humans.  He cringed at the idea of his superiors finding out the depth of it.  This knowledge only made his words come out colder.  “I can throw you back in.” When Dean fell quiet for a moment after that, he immediately felt remorse.   Pain and betrayal poured off the soul, and he wanted nothing more than to take back what he’d said. But it was too late.   Instead in the stolen seconds he watched Dean.   Here, in the dream, unhindered by the constraints of earthly reality, his soul shone out blindingly, its fragility just as magnificent as Dean’s physical form’s rugged beauty.   Castiel couldn’t let himself apologize, he couldn’t let himself falter.  Doing so, he feared, so intimately interacting with Dean’s raw soul, already horribly vulnerable, was more than he would be able to bear. Instead he explained quickly what he had come to convey, and left abruptly, an ache growing deep inside him. 

 

When he returned to Heaven, Uriel was waiting for him, a goading smile on his face.

 

“Where were you, Castiel?” his brother demanded.

 

“I was taking news to Dean Winchester,” Castiel replied with what he hoped was nonchalance.

 

“Oh. You visited that demon-stained mud monkey,” Uriel scoffed.  “That’s almost quaint.  What can you possibly find in them?  Watching them struggle to puzzle things out with their tiny brains, their absurd sense of self-importance?”

 

“Uriel,” Castiel shook his head, his voice giving off a barely-perceptible irritable edge which he had not intended to be there.

 

“Oh. Really, you’re going to try to justify this useless fascination?” Uriel continued, his voice condescending. “We are at war. Our brothers are dying. Make sure you have your priorities straight.”  

 

With that Uriel had left him alone with his thoughts.   But the damage had been done.  For the next weeks, Uriel took pleasure in goading him with the idea of the humans and his unusual action of contacting Dean without orders, but Castiel had shaken it off, replying to Uriel’s taunts with a stiff, “I do not know what you are talking about.”

 

Some good it had done.

 

Castiel’s next personally assigned mission was Dean again, except the orders he received were nothing short of horrifying.  

 

“You are to go to Dean,” his superior instructed coolly, “And send him back to see his parents. He has doubts, far too many doubts.  Your job is to make him observe what happened to put him on the course to serve Heaven. He must acknowledge that his fate is inevitable.  That he is the righteous in his bloodline, and that his brother is tainted by Hell, and that this is an inalterable fact.” 

 

“Yes,” Castiel had nodded quietly, although perhaps some of the dismay that roiled inside him showed.   He could already anticipate the even deeper sorrow this would awaken in the hunter, the desperation it would bring to the surface again.  He had willingly gone to Hell for Sam, and suffered indescribable agony for the efforts to save him. Why would making him watch and trying to crush his  meager remaining hopes do any better?  Knowing Dean, and the iron will of stubbornness he possessed, it would do no good whatsoever. It was merely an exercise in cruel futility, surely his superiors knew this, if they knew anything at all about Dean.

“The goal is sheer submission to the plan, _am I clear_?” His superior prodded again, far colder this time.   

 

“Yes, of course,” Castiel replied meekly, bowing his head in acquiescence.   He couldn’t let his doubts show.  Doubt was at best terribly unbecoming, and at worst, cause for execution if it was judged to go too far.   

 

That was how he wound up in the motel room sitting on the bed beside Dean.   As soon as he had materialized, Castiel felt a deluge of terror and pain from inside Dean, his dreaming mind still trapped back in Hell, where the screams echoed, only this time it was a memory trapped inside his skull, seared into his soul.  He wanted to do something to ease it, but he was warned off by all the wisdom he possessed that he certainly knew better than to indulge the desire.   He could not afford to let anything slip, even if Heaven never knew.  He was now certain that they had some idea, and that perhaps this assignment was a test of his loyalties as much as it was a way of breaking Dean.  He couldn’t afford to give an inch, even to himself. Not when the slightest thing off might alert them to what was happening. 

 

So he forced himself to act within the strictures of his orders.

 

“Hello, Dean.” He said quietly.   That was all it took. Dean jerked awake with a look of terror in his eyes.

 

“Dude! What the hell?!” He snapped irritably.  

 

“I’ve been asked to tell you, this has to stop,”  Castiel said, unable to stop the hint that it wasn’t him doing this of his own volition from slipping out. 

 

“Again, what the hell are you talking about?  With you angels I don’t get any freaking privacy. Couldda told me when you pulled me out. ‘Here’s the terms of your agreement’,” Dean exclaimed, although the last sentence was spoken with a small smirk.     The tone of his pronunciation shook Castiel.  Dean was utterly oblivious to the matter at hand, an odd but somehow comforting mixture of irritation and a hint of humor wafting off him. Soon he wouldn’t feel like that anymore.  

 

“Please listen to me. All of this has an end. ” Castiel’s voice was heavy as he forced himself to reach for Dean. If he didn’t go ahead and do this, he’d never be able to make himself carry out his orders.  

 

The hunter sputtered as Castiel touched his forehead, “Wait, what—“ 

 

Castiel unleashed the energy his superiors had given him, squirreled away in his grace, to snap them back in time.   Back to something that would hurt Dean, back to another time to carry out the exercise in futility that Castiel believed tormenting Dean with the past would be.

 

Castiel hovered out of sight as Dean gawked around wildly trying to orient himself to the new place and time. He bungled around, talking to his young father, before Castiel couldn't resist any longer and appeared to him again.

 

“Where are we?” Dean sputtered as Castiel materialized beside him.

 

Everything in Castiel ached to tell him all he knew. Except he couldn’t permit that of himself. So he tried to say as little as he could, and yet say more.

 

“Where do you think we are?”

 

“Freaking 1973. And that—that was my dad?!”

 

Castiel nodded, the deep sorrow he held making it easy to keep his face blank. 

Dean began demanding answers he could give.  So Castiel pretended not to hear, and not to care.   When Dean turned away at an ambient noise that startled him, Castiel took the out he was given and vanished.  He couldn’t do this.   He could hardly bear to watch, but standing so close to him, feeling all his emotions so overwhelmingly as they were channeled not only through their connection but also through the conversation, directed at him, probing him, was just too much.

 

He heard Dean curse when he turned back and realized the angel had vanished.

 

“You son of a bitch!”

 

It echoed in his ears as he watched Dean the rest of the day and into the next.   He deserved it, every bit of it.   He followed, out of sight but always present, watching as Dean met his young mother, watched him tease his way into her house, watched him track down Azazel.   He felt, albeit to a lesser extent as he tried to keep to a  more manageable distance,  the pull of Dean’s hopes rising.     Castiel watched, and grieved with Dean as a family he’d never gotten to know were threatened and killed by Azazel. Castiel watched while Dean spoke to the demon, demanded to know what the demon wanted.  Castiel tried to shut it out, tried frantically to turn off whatever channels of the connection that bound him to the human, but they were full to overflowing, and the deluges of emotion seared them deeper yet.   He felt the pit inside Dean’s stomach drop with him as he realized what Sam was. Who he’d gone to Hell for. He felt the burning desire with Dean to save his brother, and he hoped against all rationality with him that there could be some way to stop Sam.

 

He watched as Dean turned away from his mother as she left with a revived John, the reward for the twisted deal Mary made with Azazel to let him back in the brothers’ home in 1983.   Castiel saw the tears running down Dean’s face that he clawed at angrily as they glinted in moonlight where he stood in the street.   Castiel gave him a moment, then materialized again, right beside the human, whisking them away to the present again.  

 

“I’m sorry,” he spoke before he knew what he’d even said.

 

“You’re sorry? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? This is all inevitable, right? Is that your fucking point?  It’s fate?”   Hostility poured off the hunter, and it hit the angel square in the chest.   He looked away from Dean for the moment, at the ground.

 

“Yes.” Castiel’s voice was so low it would have been nearly imperceptible were he not standing so close to Dean, separated by barely a foot and a half of space.   He felt the emotion coursing from Dean change. Something like resignation.   The idea of it terrified Castiel. He wanted to shout protests, to confess that it wasn’t him. That he’d never do this, that this was not what he wanted to do to Dean.   But he couldn’t.  

 

When he finally looked up, he felt another shift in the connection.  

 

Confusion, but the anger was waning, and the familiar stubbornness was spiking again. Castiel could finally breathe now. 

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said finally. “There’s nothing anyone could have done, but you had to know, you had to see it. “   Castiel feared his words to be next to empty to the human, but there was no way he could convey, safely or otherwise his true emotions on the matter.

 

“Yeah, well thanks for that,” Dean spat the words, bitterness ripe in his voice, the anger rolling through another wave, but it too abated, replaced by a hurt and emptiness that was altogether much worse.   “So what was your point? Assuming you had one?”

 

“Sam is among Azazel’s chosen. You now know as much as we do. And in the end, either you or we will have to stop him.  Who does is your choice, but it must be done.” 

 

Turning away now, Castiel left.  

He landed in heaven, returning to the quarters for his garrison.   He passed by a familiar face in the hall, one that now inspired rage.

 

 

“You,” he demanded, repressed pain making his voice cold.  “What did you tell them?” 

 

“Why Castiel,” Uriel replied smoothly, gloatingly, “I don’t know whatever you’re talking about.”

 

“I believe you do,” Castiel snapped.  “You had no right to intervene!”    

 

“Intervene? With what? If such a thing happened, which it didn’t, it would be out of concern.   Your priorities are skewed. Don’t think I don’t know, and they will find out. I’m just watching out for you.”  Uriel said, raising his hands as if to show his innocence in the matter.

 

“I’m not so sure of that,” Castiel hissed, turning away quickly before he did or said something he’d regret.

 

 

More time passed. Between missions to stop the Seals being broken, Castiel was informed that he was assigned again to Dean. At this point he was seeing it as  much as a punishment as the fulfillment of his illicit desire to see the human more often. His displeasure at the seemingly fixed assignment was cemented when he learned that Uriel would be accompanying him.   And what came next, why that was even worse.  

 

“You are to test Dean Winchester,” their superior told them at their briefing.  “Inform him of the Seals, and of the conditions Samhain’s raising would unleash. He is already there, already on the case. Your duty in this instance is to run an experiment.  Say that you will destroy the town and order him to leave.  If he protests, allow him to attempt to prevent the Seal from being broken.  Do not proceed with destruction unless Dean Winchester concedes, barring further orders directly from me.”  

 

Castiel chanced a glance at Uriel whose expression had grown gleeful at the mention of destruction. He noticed a tightening around Uriel’s jaw at the revelation it was some sort of ploy.  Uriel, of course Uriel wanted to go about smiting.   Mixed with the rest of the uncertainty that flooded him out, Castiel felt unease at the fact he was assigned with Uriel.  Although he did nothing to express it, he  sincerely doubted this would go well.  

 

They descended to a motel room where the brothers burst in, Sam brandishing a weapon until Dean stepped in to stop him. 

 

Uriel rolled his eyes, disappointment apparent when Sam stood down, shaking as he demanded an answer of his brother and the angels.

 

“Whoah, Sammy! This is Castiel!”    The angel couldn’t help the satisfaction he derived from hearing his name from Dean’s lips. The urgency and meaning it carried in his voice were a small but extant boon to his beleaguered spirits.

 

“Who—the thing that burned out Pam’s eyes?” Sam  asked.

 

“Yeah, the angel. Relax.”

 

“Oh. Oh, I—I’m so sorry,” Sam gushed, lowering the weapon, putting it down quickly as if he could take back the hostile greeting.

 

“So, Castiel. It’s, well, I’ve never met an angel, I suppose it’s—“ 

 

“Yeah. But who’s with you, man?” Dean asked, regarding Uriel with a skeptical look.

 

“This is Uriel.” Castiel supplied smoothly.  

 

“OK, so what gives with the chaperone?” Dean jibed.  “He here to ruin the party?” Castiel caught the humor in no small part thanks to what of his intent crossed the connection, his confusion deepening.   He didn’t quite get the joke, or the innuendo, but he sensed something strange when Sam made a face at it, and Uriel scoffed disdainfully.

 

Castiel cleared his throat quietly, “Uriel is a bit of a specialist.”

 

“Huh. So what’d you bring him here for?”  Dean continued, uncertainty that crossed the connection absent from his voice.

 

“You’re aware a witch is raising Samhain, correct?  He must be stopped, and the only way to be certain,” he paused for emphasis, glancing to Uriel, who finished the thought for him, “Is to destroy this town.”

 

“You should leave immediately,”  Castiel added stiffly, struggling not to let a hint of what he felt bleed into his voice. But he pushed it along the connection, hoping, whether vainly or not he was uncertain, that Dean would feel something of the conflict and reluctance that permeated him.

 

“What the fuck? You can’t kill everybody in this town!” Dean exclaimed.   

 

“Oh, we can, and we will,” Uriel insisted, altogether too eager for it to be true.

 

“Well screw you. We’ll stop the freaking demon summoning shit if that will do anything.  Orders, really? Kill a whole town! What are you, hammers? No guts, no backbone, no conscience?” Dean defied.

 

“We have our orders,” Castiel managed to back up his brother, but didn’t have the heart to contradict Dean.

 

“Yeah, but, how many people would that kill? I—I don’t mean this personally but I thought Heaven was a force for, you know, _good_ ,” Sam protested, unease apparent in his face, although his tone was relatively diplomatic as he looked between the angels and Dean.

 

“Miserable tiny-minded ants,” Uriel scowled. “You’re quite the one to talk, boy with the demon blood.   You don’t understand. Samhain’s summoning is a Seal.”

 

“A seal?” Dean asked. “What’s he talking about?”

 

“Seals. Think of them as locks on a  door, to Lucifer’s cage.   There are over 600, but if 66 are broken, Lucifer rises.  It is our imperative to prevent that.”    Castiel was grateful he had the chance to merely convey information rather than having to hold up the pretext of the ploy.  

 

“OK, got that much,” Dean nodded. “Let us try to fix it.   Really. Before you blast this place into orbit.” 

 

“This is absurd. I will not entertain their ludicrous fantasies—“ Uriel began, but Dean cut him off, staring him down as he spoke.

 

“Like it or not, we’re doing this, and you aren’t stopping us unless you kill us. And…I don’t think your bosses would like that too much. “   Defiance and anger broiled from Dean into the connection, and Castiel felt an unexpected pride at that.  He was strong, whether this was the right answer to the test or not, Dean was resolute, and that...that meant more to him than he’d expected.  

 

“If you are really going to attempt this, you’d best act quickly,” Castiel said shrewdly, giving Uriel a hard look.  

 

The angels left the motel room, landing in a park while they waited for the brothers to act.

 

They abided for some time in silence, hovering outside the range of human awareness. Eventually Uriel materialized, moving to sit on a bench. 

 

Castiel took a seat beside him. 

 

“So tell me. What exactly is it about that mud monkey that has you so confident?”   Uriel asked.   “Because unless I’m mistaken, you believe he will prevent Samhain from rising.”  

 

“It does not matter what we think,” Castiel said, hoping to dispel Uriel’s suspicions. “We have orders. We are to allow him to attempt this.”

 

“Sure. Because mud monkeys are known for making terrible decisions when it comes to the fate of Creation,” Uriel scoffed.  

 

“That is not for you or me to decide,” Castiel said in a measured voice.

 

“Perhaps not,” Uriel sniffed. “But I would make a much better decision than this.”

 

“What would you do then?” Castiel sighed.

 

“I’d remove those ungrateful ants from the face of the Earth.” Uriel declared.

 

“You seem to doubt our command’s choice to go with his judgment,” Castiel observed, wanting to say more, to defend Dean, but  knowing he couldn’t.  It was foolhardy to allow himself that much protest with Uriel at all.

 

“Leaving this to a mud monkey? They’re brainless, Castiel!  They walk around and live and die in a blink of an eye, utterly insignificant—“ Uriel rushed.

 

“You would disobey orders to destroy this place?” Castiel asked, cutting him off with a shake of his head. 

 

Uriel didn’t respond, merely staring at Castiel, smirking with a callous amusement that made Castiel’s blood run cold.

 

Castiel prayed silently while he and Uriel waited to a Father he had never known.

 

Please, help Dean to make the right decision. That he might save this town, these people. I understand their souls would be judged and taken into Heaven if You deemed worthy, but please let there another way. That you might let Dean make that choice, if it is Your will. I am troubled as well, Father.  I hope that you might tell me whether what I am doing is right. Just the smallest sign. Something. Anything. I don’t understand what is happening to me, what I am feeling.    I have been told I should not feel like this at all, not towards a human, not towards anyone. I don’t know why this is, or if I should. I am afraid, Father, for so many things I have seen and done and felt of late. I am confused.  Please, tell me what to do, Father, for I surely do not know the way.

 

When night fell, Dean and Sam had finally exorcised the demon, only through Sam’s powers, Castiel was saddened to see.  The brother Dean had gone to Hell for was still using his demonic powers.  This boded poorly for the brothers, but Castiel couldn't dwell on that now. There was too much inside him already.

 

Uriel departed long before Castiel did.   He was glad to be free of his brother’s misanthropic company.   He joined Dean back at the park, on a bench.

 

The human shifted uneasily when he appeared, a deep frown crossing his face.

 

“If you’re here to say I chose wrong, don’t,” Dean said preemptively, his voice taut with the same defensiveness that radiated off him.

 

“No, that was not my intention,” Castiel sighed.   He checked around himself to make sure they were alone, away from other angels’ prying eyes before he continued. 

 

“Dean. I did not want to have to smite this town.  I prayed you’d make this decision.  This—this was a test. We were to do what you told us.”

 

“Oh well thanks for that,” Dean bit out, the intensity of his anger taking Castiel off guard.

 

“I—“ Castiel began, his voice shuddering in a false start as he checked yet again that they were truly alone. He wasn’t sure why he was risking telling Dean this.  What would it achieve? Could he really expect the human to understand? “I wanted to tell you, but it was beyond my authority to do so.  I’m not a hammer as you said before.  I too have doubts, of what Heaven wants of me. Of you.  Whether this was right or wrong? I don’t know. And I’m afraid there will be many more choices like this for you.  I do not envy the position Heaven has put you in. And….I…”    didn’t finish as  a wave of emotion hit him from their connection.  

 

“You…shit…” Dean muttered, but what came off of him was not anger. His tone and the emotion was something far subtler and far more conflicted, something complex, with the iron of Dean’s will mixed in with it.  Sensing that made Castiel smile. 

 

“That wasn’t you, huh?”   Dean managed.

 

“No. This ploy was not of my creation.”  Castiel confirmed.   That, that was a question at least remotely safe to answer.  But what had he been going to say before the connection interrupted him? ‘And I wish I could help you more?’ That was it.  One thing among so very many that he could not say. He had, after all, already said far too much.

 

Castiel chose this moment to leave before he said something else he shouldn’t.  


	4. As A Warning Sign pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is forced into a horrible choice by Castiel's superiors, the consequences of which leave the angel in the line of fire on Dean's behalf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating was changed to M because this chapter contains torture. It's towards the end, so if it bothers you perhaps skip that segment, which is after after the second debriefing scene between Cas and his superiors.

The next time Castiel saw Dean, it was at yet another confrontational juncture. As much as he wanted to see him again, and the need was there, it had grown to a permeating ache that never left, but had settled in his core, eating away, but still he hated it being like this. 

Castiel stood with Uriel, who, some surprise, had been assigned with him yet again.  
They were outside the cabin where Dean, Sam, Ruby and the fallen angel were hiding. 

Uriel forced the door open, and they were greeted by a wide-eyed Sam and Dean. 

“What do you want?” Sam asked, standing with a gun still raised. 

“We are here for Anna,” Castiel found himself saying, although it was only the furthest from what the wanted to say, the furthest from what he wanted to be here for. 

“Why?” Dean demanded, his voice harsh. Castiel wanted to reach out, to wrap his arms around the human and tell him it wasn’t why Casitel had come. If it was up to him, this wouldn't be happening—but Uriel could not hear that. Uriel could not be lead to further suspect his sympathies. Uriel looked at him expectantly. Castiel couldn’t stop now. He had to dispense with his duty.

“She has to die,” Castiel muttered, fists clenched. This time he expected the onslaught of anger. He deserved it. Although he full well knew and acknowledged this, it still hurt much more than it should have. Most of all, because he was again hurting Dean. 

“Slow the hell down,” Dean said, holding his hands up as if that would stop the angels. “First of all, why?” 

Uriel scoffed. “You think she’s so innocent, but she isn’t. She is unnatural, and must be disposed of.”

“Nobody’s disposing of anybody,” Dean insisted, which made Uriel scowl.

 

“You insolent human,” Uriel growled, his blade falling into his hand. 

Dean and Sam tensed, ready to fight, as Uriel began to move to attack. Castiel rushed forwards, unable to think what else to do. He was nearly on top of Uriel, ready to pull him aside and defend Dean, when a searing golden light swept him and Uriel away. It was the work of a sigil, surely. As he departed, he felt a mixture of shock and relief through the connection with Dean. It weighed on him to know that Dean was glad he was gone. But what more could he expect? For the second time in a row, he’d come to Dean bearing news that he was to take what Dean believed to be innocent lives. Dean, despite the evils he’d faced and committed in Hell, despite the overwhelming duties thrust upon him, still somehow had goodness in his heart. He somehow still cared, in the very human, cynical way of his, which must have seemed to him everything Castiel wasn’t. It was no wonder Dean did not want to be near Castiel.

Uriel roared as they were sucked through space with the overwhelming speed of the sigil’s power, to the empty void of space. Castiel merely sighed. He deserved this, every bit of this, and more. The hypocrisy, the act he’d been struggling to maintain had been draining him, and this seemed as bad as it could get. He knew he couldn’t do any more than this. Any more and he feared he would explode. 

“Why weren’t you helping me, Castiel?” Uriel demanded.

“I was, I—“ Castiel began, attempting to rein in the defensiveness that poured from him. 

“Were you, really?” Uriel asked angrily as he turned away, beginning the long trek through space back towards the far-away sun that glinted on an outer arm of the galaxy. 

Castiel didn’t bother answering; there was no reasoning or pleading to be done. He was at the edge of being able to deny further without arousing more suspicion. Perhaps silence was the wisest option at this point. And at any rate, he didn’t have it in him to protest further. He followed Uriel back towards Earth in silence, praying all the way.

He prayed, all the while, imploring his Father for guidance. 

I am lost, Father. My brothers begin to doubt my loyalty. I do not know why I have this doubt, I do not know why I am doing this, and I do not know how to change it. I have tried so many times over, and yet I fail utterly. I pray that You would show me something, give me some direction. I have none of my own. I am mired in all that surrounds me. I know there is a greater plan, Your plan, but I cannot see it, try as I might, and I do not know how to act to further it. I know I am but one angel among the millions, one creature among the countless of Your Creation. I understand I am to obey my superiors, and I do all that I can to be obedient and humble. But Father, I fail so utterly. I pray that you would direct me to the proper path, and give me the strength and patience and humility to do what is commanded of me, to carry out Your will, be that what it may. 

He flew on in silence beside Uriel. When his prayer ended, he proceeded to stare in awe at the glory of the galaxy. The star systems twined about one another, the great billowing clouds of incandescent dust that seared with light brighter than his own grace, energy burning in a driving force of the physical universe. Even in his disheartened, wearied state, awe spread through him. He wondered if Uriel felt it, but a glance told him his brother did not share his reverie. Uriel’s countenance was blank, a singular, cold determination oozing from him. He found he longed to distance himself from his brother and that harshness he held. He couldn’t, so instead, he looked out as the stars passed by, the shining, miniscule blips of distant planets and their moons in the orbits of other suns, and wondered at the happenings of their ancient lifetimes. They were all incredible, beautiful, but empty. What he longed for was nestled on a small, blue and white planet he’d been ejected from. One tiny, inexplicably beautiful man, who he wanted to see, to hear, whose soul he ached to see shine out at him, whose emotions he longed to feel flowing around him.  
Beside Uriel, he raced back towards the man he couldn’t tell these things, the man he could never acknowledge as anything more than an assignment. 

As usual when he found himself thinking these things, he was struck by how wrong something was, but this time, he wondered if he wasn’t wrong. But that, perhaps, something was instead wrong with his orders. 

As they neared the planet and its sun, they received an order to return instead to Heaven. So that was where they went instead.

Castiel sat beside Uriel while his superiors hashed out their plan around him. What he heard made him freeze in place, sudden clarity thrusting his earlier doubt into sharp relief. 

“The human must be put in his place,” one said.

“Agreed,” the other replied.

“It is time for an ultimatum. Either Dean Winchester hands over Anna for her execution, or he will return to Hell.” 

It took everything Castiel had to not move, to remain impassive, sitting quiet as a stone while his superiors discussed their orders around him. He wanted to scream, to jump up, to protest, to do whatever it took to dispel the horrific idea. But he could not do this. Else he would be subject to the same wrath that befell Anna.

“A most fitting plan,” the first superior conceded, a cold smile on his face. “However, it might be prudent to keep him. His brother’s death would be equally persuasive. And we must be pragmatic. Anna, should she recall her prior existence as one of us, will attempt to retrieve her grace.”

“Yes. Uriel, go quickly. Retrieve it and return here awaiting further orders.”

“Castiel, you are dismissed.” 

Castiel left the command room, moving back to his quarters, where he sat listlessly, staring at the wall, the horrible possibilities whirring about in his mind until they exhausted themselves, and he had to admit defeat, so utter he didn’t even consider praying about it. Who was he to presume himself better than his commanders? And now he was watching the consequences of what happened to an angel who acted upon those ideas. No. If he valued his existence, he had to keep it a secret. 

Uriel returned some time later, a gloating smile on his face.

“I spoke with Dean,” he said, laughing in a way that once would have seemed relatively benign, but now struck Castiel as cruel.

“You did?” Castiel said blankly, which was not difficult, as the exhaustion of overwhelming helplessness had removed all emotion from his voice and mind. 

“Why yes, I did, although only by appearing to him in a dream. He is hiding, like a rat, the coward that he is. He again refused to turn Anna over. We are both to go confront them. “

“Of course,” Castiel replied tersely.

“Oh. And he has further indulged in debauchery of the worst kind with Anna. The abomination of it all. Just think.” Uriel added.

Castiel couldn’t reply. He shook internally where he sat, gazing down at his hands instead of at Uriel as he attempted and failed to steady himself. The idea of Dean with Anna did strange things inside of him. It was not the disgust that Uriel’s voice dripped that he felt. This was something else. A sadness, and an anger. And…more, something yet more, but Castiel forced himself to stop lingering on it. He instead focused on the anger.

“Of course he did, what do you expect of a human?” Castiel said after a few long moments, words he didn’t believe coursing out as he forced the anger into his tone. Anger, anger he could work with, anger he could use to hide the rest of the mess that raged inside him.

Castiel chanced a look up now, in time to see Uriel incline his head, an odd expression on his face. It looked like skepticism. Something inside Castiel sunk further yet. 

Uriel motioned for Castiel to follow him. “What are you waiting for? We have orders to carry out.”

They stood, facing off against Sam, Dean and Anna. 

“It’s time. She will come with us, or the demon-blooded boy dies,” Uriel pronounced.

“No. You’ll have to go through me, you feathery piece of shit,” Dean bit out, fist clenched around the demon-killing knife. 

“Dean, please,” Castiel blurted, earning a disapproving quirk of an eyebrow from Uriel.

“Hand her over, now, or Castiel will kill your brother himself,” Uriel pronounced, a spiteful smile crossing his face. “And by the way, Castiel, that is an order from Moirlian.” 

“Dean. Hand her over,” Castiel bellowed, unable to keep the desperation from leeching out. He hated to do this to Dean, but he already knew he couldn't kill Sam, he couldn't do something that awful to Dean, and the only way around that without damning himself with clear disobedience was if Dean handed over Anna. So he demanded this, making his voice full of wrath and divine purpose. He prayed silently that Dean would have the good sense to comply.

“Fuck you.,” Dean denounced, his voice cold. 

“Alright then. We have our answer. Your brother dies,” Uriel declared darkly as Castiel’s heart pounded in his ears. He froze as Uriel’s sword fell into his hand, paralyzed by the enormity of what was happening. Uriel could not do this—and if it was true, that Castiel was the one to kill Sam—no, he would not entertain that notion. As unimportant as the human was to him he could barely stand in the face of the deluges of pain and betrayal that swept off of dean and threatened to pull him away.

“No, Dean!” Castiel roared. “Do it! Give her to us. This is not worth your brother’s life.“ 

“Oh. Castiel.” Anna shook her head. “Please don’t do this. He isn’t part of this. If you must, I will go. Maybe it’s—“ 

Then she was shoved aside as demons materialized. Ruby, bleeding, pushed her away as she and Alastair came between the brothers, Anna and the angels. Another demon stood off with them.

Castiel gripped his sword, circling with Uriel as he attempted to land a blow. The demon blocked it, grinning darkly. 

“Oh. Hello. It seems we’re here for the same package,” Alastair grinned darkly. 

“You aren’t taking her,” Castiel asserted, frowning mightily as he bought time while Uriel faced Ruby, who ducked away from his blows, fighting him over his sword.

‘I wouldn’t bet on that,” Alastair said. 

Castiel moved in to strike again, this time landing a blow—then his blade was knocked away. He continued with his bare hands, attempting to make enough contact to smite, but Alastair was almost as fast as he was. He saw the demon’s vessel bleeding, blood from cuts on its face, bruises blooming on its neck and hands wehre it punched him as well. Seeing its physical manifestation suffer gave him a twisted sense of satisfaction. This, this was the evil that had so tormented Dean. To make it hurt, to make it suffer, perhaps didn’t help Dean, but it was satisfying nonetheless. Satisfying, he realized with alarm, for reasons that should not be satisfying to an angel. Smiting, smiting was important holy work, but…he wanted this for Dean. He drew on all the power he had, beckoning with an outstretched hand as he tried to draw the demon out of its vessel.

Panic clutched at him from the inside out as the demon stood, watching, laughing.

“Whats the matter, Castiel? Bit off more than you can chew?” Alastair bit out the words with a condescending smirk. 

Then he began to chant, and the world began to sway—he felt himself being drawn out of his vessel—Castiel doubled over, struggling to hang on to the physical body he inhabited. He clutched his head, everything caving in around him as he was ripped out. 

Then suddenly the pull was gone, and he was lying on the ground, gravel grinding up into the fabric of his suit. 

“Cas! Are you OK?!” Dean shouted. His voice was full of concern as his footsteps pounded over to the angel. Dean was at his side, a tire iron dangling from his hand as he pulled the angel to his feet again. “You gotta get up! You gotta fight that son of a bitch!” 

Castiel nodded, shaking himself bodily as he stood full height again. Alastair had fallen back a bit, clutching a welt on his face in the shape of the tire iron Dean wielded. He threw Dean aside, out of the way of the oncoming demon as moved to grab his blade again. He lashed out again, landing a glancing blow to Alastair when he heard Uriel bellow. 

While Uriel was busy exorcising the other demon, Anna had snatched away the necklace which held her grace. The chain swung wildly from the pendant as it slithered from her hands. She smashed the pendant to the floor and light poured out. Castiel shouted for Dean and Sam to look away. They did so, hitting the ground as a blinding silver light exploded through the air. 

In the miliseconds before the shockwave of the grace hit him, Alastair knew what was happening. His incorporeal form poured out like formless black smoke from his vessel’s mouth just as the light hit it, and it burned away to ash. 

A high pitched whining tore through the air as grace found its appropriate vessel. Light that Castiel could only withstand because of his own grace. He watched through the light that rivaled that of the sun as Anna’s wings flared and she disappeared with a fiery gust of power. 

Dean and Sam scrambled to their feet, looking around them, bewildered. Castiel felt relief surging off of Dean.

“So? What’re you waiting for? If you want her so bad go get her!” Dean spat the words, although Castiel felt something a little….lighter…playing across their connection. 

“Yes, I suppose we will,” Castiel returned with what he hoped was arrogance.  
Perhaps it wasn’t enough, because Uriel cast a doubtful look his way. 

“Don’t think we will forget this insolence,” Uriel said harshly, giving Castiel a questioning look as he departed without another word. 

Castiel paused for an instant, torn between staying and telling Dean something, anything, all the things he wanted to say---he did not want to kill sam, that he wouldn’t, couldn’t, have killed Sam, that he didn’t want to kill Anna—but he stopped himself and followed Uriel. Doing anything less, at the moment, given his brother’s mounting suspicion, he was beginning to truly fear might land him in the same predicament as Anna. A problem he was much better off without. 

*  
Castiel and Uriel attempted to track Anna across the earth for a while, but that failing, they returned to Heaven. Moirlian, as Castiel had dreaded, was mightily displeased. 

“You mean to say she escaped?” He demanded of Uriel and Castiel. 

Castiel looked away, nodding somberly. “Yes, sir. She retrieved her grace from Uriel, during the conflict—“

“Did she now? What were you doing, Castiel?” Moirlian asked coldly.

“I was attempting to exorcise Alastair, however that failed and he began to attempt to expel me from my vessel. I was overcome until…” Castiel paused momentarily, remembering the sound of Dean’s voice. The alarm, the way he’d grabbed Cas’ arm and yanked him to his feet—this was….he blocked that thought, attempting to focus. “Alastair was distracted by one of the humans,” Castiel continued clinically, trying to swallow away the emotion that roiled inside him. 

Castiel shifted uneasily when he thought he heard Uriel’s quiet scoff at this.

“And as I attempted to smite him, Anna was able to overcome Uriel as he was exorcising another demon. This was when she retrieved her grace.”

“Indeed,” Moirlian frowned. “You are dismissed for now, Castiel. Go wait in my office. I will have a word with Uriel now, alone.” 

Castiel nodded, his eyes on the floor as he retreated just inside the office door as he was told. 

Something inside him was sinking. This wasn’t good. He had failed and…Uriel. What would Uriel say? Suddenly the hints and quiet conflict of the past weeks came rushing back. Uriel….he had accused him of having misplaced sympathies in Dean. Perhaps….Castiel bit back the fear that rose. 

 

*

Castiel clenched his teeth as the blade slowly dragged across his shoulder. He fought not to scream, struggled not to flinch. But he couldn’t. Tears ran down his face, mixing with the blood that pooled on his cheeks to flow in a watery mess down his chin to drip in the wounds on his shoulders as well. It burned, but not so much as the next slice that came. His nails bit into his palms as he struggled again not to cry out. 

“What did I say, Castiel?” Moirlian asked between cuts as he held out a hand indicating to the torture specialist to stop. 

Castiel averted his eyes, sucking in a breath between his teeth. 

“What did I say?” Moirlian offered again, this time tsking to himself. “If you will admit your wrongdoings and come back into the fold, you will be forgiven.”

“I don’t understand,” Castiel choked out the words. “What have I done?”

“Believe it or not, Castiel,” his superior said haughtily, “We are doing you a favor. We opted for attempting reeducation for your particular offense rather than, say, more drastic measures.” 

“I don’t understand,” Castiel rasped again. “What did I do? I did as I was told! I have done nothing but what I was told—“ his voice rose to a harsh cry. “Tell me! Tell me, or else kill me, Moirlian! I cannot repent if I do not know what I’ve done wrong!” 

“What didn’t you do, Castiel?” Moirlian asked. “And whose orders are you following? You’ll have some time to think on that.” 

With that Moirlian turned away, and Castiel was left to scream at the wall in front of him.

More of his brothers came and released the shackles that had held him to the table. He collapsed on his knees, face in his hands. He was left alone in the dark room, the stone floor cold beneath him. Free of the binding shackles, his powers flowed freely and the wounds mended, but no amount of power could erase what had been set loose inside him. 

He had lied, he had denied. He was an angel, built to withstand anything for his commands. But he was facing and resisting his own superiors. If anything, the fact of this confirmed that he was indeed seeking purpose elsewhere besides his own commanders. 

Maybe he was….was he doubting?  
Could they possibly be wrong? The angels who acted on the word of their Father?  
The thought chilled him, but all at once began to make sense. His command told him to go against Dean, but he couldn’t find it in himself to believe Dean was wrong. Dean did not want to smite the town, Dean defended Anna. Were these not honorable things, from Dean’s perspective? Perhaps they were honorable things in general, as well. Perhaps they were honorable things for an angel to stand for, as well. Only, if this was honorable, why was he suffering?

Fear bloomed inside Castiel replacing the pain and emptiness. He resolved to do what he must to get out, to be released to normal duty again. He knew it would be days, perhaps weeks before he was given that chance, but however long it took, he had to warn Dean. 

Castiel spent much of the next days in isolation praying. He had realized he was in an isolation chamber, cutting off his grace from the restorative effects of the energies that flowed through the rest of Heaven. He could feel his grace receding within him, slowly drying back to a brittle little thing that could have been crushed by a more powerful angel with frighteningly little effort. Yet the weaker he became physically, the more vehement his pleas to his Father became. He prayed for guidance. He prayed for courage, for strength of character, for strength of his grace, and for Dean’s safety. He gave addendums that he understood he was only one among so many. But mostly he beseeched a Father he had never met and never heard from that he might be allowed back to see Dean, if only one more time. He had to warn him. He had to know he was alright. Then whatever befell him, Castiel swore to himself and whomever was listening, perhaps his Father, he supposed, that he would accept it willingly. 

After six days, he was released from the room. He stumbled out into the brightness that permeated Heaven, collapsing before his brothers, who carried him back to his quarters. There, he spent a week more slowly regaining his strength. 

In that time, he listened to the whispers around him, and noticed the sidelong glances and drowned in the silence that he was treated to. 

From tiny bits of overheard conversation, he began to put together what had happened. His superiors were thoroughly displeased with his and Uriel’s failure to capture Anna, and that paired with the rumors that circulated of his unusual loyalties to a human and the rising need to make examples in the present time of upheaval in the face of the challenge of the oncoming apocalypse had resulted in his ‘reeducation.’ 

He accepted this with a quiet resignation. If he pretended everything was alright and he had learned his lesson, perhaps he would be able to escape notice, even as the doubts whirled inside him faster.


	5. If You Talk Enough Sense Then You'll Lose Your Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read this: 
> 
> Sorry it took so long to update. I've been reworking this, trying to decide how to tie this up. I've added a paragraph or two at the beginning of the first chapter to set up the majority of the story as a flashback in Cas' memory, and well, you'll see if you read it. But please do reread the first paragraph or two of the first chapter, as this modification is necessary to understand what's going on in the story when the flashback ends towards the end of this particular chapter. Don't worry there's more after this too. I hope to have that up soon.

_If you talk enough sense…_

During his time in Heaven, he learned Alastair had been captured by Uriel. Castiel mourned the fact he had not been the one to do it. He wanted to see the demon suffer, as illogical as it was.

His next assignment he was told was born of plain necessity; angels were dying. Although he was not a first pick, given his recent infractions, he was a capable body on the ground, and so was assigned a job to do under Uriel, who evinced sardonic satisfaction at his promotion.

He saw for himself shortly, just how grievous things were. He and Uriel were tracking dead angels when he stumbled upon one in a parking lot. Uriel was elsewhere, checking the spot of another dead angel, leaving Castiel a few moments of solitude. He walked over to the angel where she lay, a blade protruding from her chest, and whispered his apologies. However awful things were for him, there was no excuse for this. He then went to meet with Uriel as he was bid to do. At present, the slightest departure from his orders, he knew would mean death.

Uriel and he went back to where Alastair was held.

Castiel watched as Uriel flayed him with an angel blade, but the demon only laughed.

“You think I’d ever tell you self-righteous dumbasses anything?” the demon gloated. “The end of your precious Earth is coming. How about this? You get something for me, and then maybe I’ll talk.”

“What? What could you possibly want, scum?” Uriel demanded coldly, holding the blade at the demon’s throat. Castiel nearly felt the need to remind Uriel not to kill the demon, as they needed the information on who of his underlings was killing angels, but he resisted. He could not upbraid his superior. It would not bode well.

“Oh, just to see an old star pupil,” Alastair gloated. Castiel rushed forwards, shoving his blade into the demon’s chest as he growled out his merciless response.

“We will do no such thing! You will rot here, for eternity, and I will kill you myself sooner than bow to your demands!” His blade bit deep, so deep Alastair was left gasping, unable to form an intelligible reply, and Uriel intervened. His angry voice boomed in Castiel’s ear. “Castiel! Enough! If you kill him, we will get no information. He might have a point. His pupil, that human Dean Winchester was the best torturer in all of Hell second only to him. We will get Dean, although I don’t pretend to understand, or care why you would suggest fetching him,” Uriel shrugged.

“Castiel. Let’s be gone. We will retrieve his pupil, perhaps this will do some good.” With that Uriel and Castiel left to where they tracked the Winchesters.

Dean and Sam stepped into the room, their dismay at the angels’ presence apparent in their faces and voices.

“Oh, great. You, again,” Dean griped.  
“Watch your tone, human,” Uriel snarled.

“Dean. Apologies for the intrusion, but your assistance is necessary,” Castiel blurted without being able to stop himself. His voice was steeped in urgency, but also a tone of apology that was plain to hear. Uriel cleared his throat vociferously.

“Yes, as Castiel said,” the other angel said unhurriedly. “You will come with us now.”

“I'm not going anywhere with either you, Chuckles, or him,” Dean scoffed. “Come on, Sam, ignore them.”

“Ignoring us will not help you any,” Castiel insisted. “I wish there was another way, but we need you to get Alastair to talk. Demons have been killing angels. Dean, please, this is important!” Castiel was practically begging now. He swallowed hard, cutting himself off, although he had a sinking feeling the damage had already been done.

“That sucks, Cas, really,” Dean shrugged. “But I’m freaking tired. We’ve been going all day. Heaven can wait for a few hours.”

“We will not wait,” Uriel reproached, moving to

“What the fuck was that?!” Dean sputtered as Uriel transported them to the abandoned warehouse where Alastair was restrained.

“I’ll help. If I get to hear from him just why you want me to do this. But I can’t think with your attitude stinking up the room, so beat it,” Dean muttered.

Uriel gave the human a scathing look, but complied, hissing to Castiel, “Make certain he cooperates.”

“Alright. Cas. Tell me, what the fuck is going on exactly.”

“OK. Why me? Why am I the one he fucking picks? Huh? Why did you save me? You could drag out of hell just about any ‘pupil’ of his, couldn’t you? So why did it have to be me?!” Dean snapped.

“I'm sorry. I truly am, but you’re our only option at this point. You were the most prodigious torturer in Hell second only to Alastair himself. And this, this instance has nothing to do with saving you. Why would you think that? “

 

“Still the question stands,” Dean shrugged, voice bitter. “Why did you choose me?”

“I did not choose you,” Castiel replied truthfully, although for honesty, this had to be some sort of record. The self-loathing he felt radiating from Dean didn’t encourage him to the announcement he was going to make. “It was commanded. When you tortured in Hell, you broke the first seal to Lucifer’s cage.” But, Dean. You are different. I do not know why, I do not know how, but you are entirely different. “

*

Dean had become aware of…something. At first it was just fleeting impressions, just strange sweeping sensations, really.

There was something alien yet oddly familiar to it. It was…crap. It was him. The closer he looked through the shadowy tangents of substance, bits of the ethereal world around him solidified, and he could see himself, years ago, actually, and…

The more he focused in on it, the clearer it became, although still nebulous and seared in strange colors and sensations and emotions of a caliber he had never quiet experienced. There was something alien, but familiar, in such a way that it felt…well deja-vu wasn’t quite it. He knew he had already lived this, objectively, as he heard the echoes of words that had passed his own lips.

“…don’t ever change…”

He felt…he felt a hand on his shoulder, felt a warmth of a sort that was overwhelming in scope, exploding from inside his—or—Cas? Was this Cas? Cas’ being.

Then it faded, the sense of person and time, to an ever-changing hubbub of people, places, sights, sounds. The only constant through it was the fact he kept seeing, hearing himself. He’d never seen himself like that before, from the outside.

_Then you’ll lose your mind._

The only thing that made remote sense was that he was seeing things from Cas’ point of view. The fleeting realization was swept away with Pain, anger, oh god, so much anger and confusion flooded him as he felt in Castiel’s body, lived the memory as Castiel as the angel pushed Dean up against the wall of the greenroom, a cold thrill in his veins. He pulled out his blade, looking to Dean whose mouth one hand was pressed over, his look saying desperately, begging, not to speak. The tension in him boiled and then died back to a deadly calm as he sliced his arm deftly, smearing a sigil onto the wall. He mashed the bloodied palm of his hand to it, hissing to Dean, “Close your eyes…”  
After that things blurred together, power surging through his veins and obliterating Dean’s awareness until it solidified again to the world, this time a horrible day, Dean could tell before the scene was even visible.

There was a deathly calm and resolve, however, that smoothed over the jagged crevices of desperation.  
It blurred together again until a searing heat in Dean’s—or Cas’, it was Cas’, he supposed, hand brought him back to reality.

A bottle with a flaming rag, a Molotov cocktail, was in his hand.

“Hey, Assbutt!” He shouted, flinging it at a surprised-looking Adam Milligan.  
Then the being that inhabited Sam’s body, Lucifer, whose true face he saw burning through the vessel in Castiel’s memory, sent him a cold look, and Dean felt instead of the mortal terror he was so familiar with as a human, a quiet resignation. Then as Lucifer in Sam’s body snapped his fingers, Castiel and Dean’s awareness was again obliterated. The last thing Dean got from that was a quiet defiance and resignation, the fragments of a thought that although far more nebulous than what he normally processed, filled out to be something like…it was worth it.

 

He reeled at the thought. There was no way. What the fuck was this? Some sort of fucked up dream that in a twisted way he wanted…or… Dean didn’t know, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Was it real? Had it been real? But then, there was no other explanation, and he’d, he’d fallen asleep with Cas beside him, and…oh, oh shit.

If that was what was going on, then it was real. Dean’s breath caught in his throat as he startled, loud strains of some sort of music blaring into his consciousness.

His eyes flew open, the computer in his lap snapping shut under his fingertips.

He looked at Cas, who appeared lost in thought.

“Uh…” He muttered, rubbing his eyes absently. Shit. This wasn’t going to be easy, was it?


	6. Talk Some Sense To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean wakes up and realizes Cas' thoughts were projected in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this update for weeks, and it's taken it's sweet time coalescing. I finally decided it's best to just post as-is and if anybody has edits to suggest, lemme know in the comments. And yes, it's a nice ending...provided you're ready for explicit. ;) Rating has been upgraded accordingly.

_Talk some sense to me._

 

“Cas?” Dean’s voice cut through the memories, jolting Castiel to awareness again.

“Yes?”

“Any idea why I’ve been seeing old me in my head?” Dean’s tone was light, if somewhat confused.

Shame filled Castiel. He realized suddenly that while he was lost in memory, their connection must have been open, and he had been unconsciously pushing the memories across it. He had never imagined, however, that Dean would be receptive.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to. I was simply thinking, and I suppose it’s possible the connection we share—over it I usually feel some of your emotions. I don’t know if you knew that. But I didn’t know you could receive information from it. I’ve only ever felt things from you,“ Cas explained, not wanting to admit how much he’d wanted the connection to go both ways.

Dean shook his head, hushing Cas. “Cas. Chill. It’s…it’s ok. I…those were, those were how you saw things?”

“Those were my memories of events.” Castiel confirmed, his gut sinking. He had invaded Dean’s mind without meaning to and without asking, flooded him with thoughts Dean had never asked for. What was he going to do? To say to this?  
He began to move away, but Dean’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“So, weird question maybe, but you really, uh, seemed to like me. That was for real?” Dean asked quietly. “Because…it was all garbled, the dreams and stuff, but that was everywhere.” The words were clumsy but he said them with a tenderness Castiel had not expected. He looked up at the human, whose face was expectant, all questioning green eyes that he saw the glimmer of his soul in.

“I—yes. Dean. Perhaps I shouldn’t, but—“

‘You’ve really loved me since then?” Dean asked, amazement in his voice. Castiel barely dared believe what he heard.

“Yes. I have never stopped loving you,” he replied quietly. His heart pounded in his ears as he waited to see what Dean made of that. This was it; Dean knew now, and there was no going back.

“Oh my god, Cas,” Dean scoffed. “You never told me?”

“I did not know how you would react,” Castiel said. “I was afraid you would find the idea disagreeable.”

“Cas, really? Why would I not like hearing that from you?” Dean asked, his voice full of a warmth Castiel didn’t think he’d heard before. “When I’ve been too freaking chicken to admit it myself?” He added with a wry laugh.

“You have?” Castiel was blindsided by the revelation.

“Of course I have. I feel like an ass not having said it before, but Cas. Really…we’ve both been idiots. Let’s stop being stupid because, god, you’re too amazing for that.”

Dean grinned at Cas, whose breath caught in his throat. “That….that sounds…good,” Castiel muttered.

“Now enough talking. Let’s fix this.” Dean laughed.

 

Castiel leaned in as Dean threw an arm around his shoulders. Dean’s breath was warm on his lips for a moment as they hovered inches from each others’ faces. Even in the soft light of the lamp beside the couch, Castiel could trace each freckle across Dean’s nose. His eyes glinted as he smiled, flecks of gold standing out in the green. “What?” Dean asked, his tone filled with amusement.

“You’re beautiful,” Castiel said automatically, finally for once able to say what he was thinking without holding back.

And Dean was, truly beautiful.

Dean laughed, and he and Castiel leaned in simultaneously, meeting Castiel with a kiss, which Castiel returned with far too many years’ worth of passion. He had wanted this, for so long, and now that it was here, it was more than he could have hoped for.

He tasted him, explored and felt his way into Dean’s mouth with a hunger he hadn’t yet truly acknowledged. His hand fisted the back of Dean’s shirt, and his other hand was nested in Dean’s hair as if he could pull him in even closer. He wanted all of Dean. Just this wasn’t enough. More, more. He wanted, needed, more.

Dean broke off first, his chest heaving with a deep breath that expanded his ribs. “Wow,” he said in an awed whisper. “And uh, thanks.” He added awkwardly.  
Castiel’s brow furrowed momentarily as he puzzled out just what Dean meant.

“It wasn’t a compliment; it’s merely the truth,” Castiel shrugged.

Dean laughed. “What? I mean, thanks for that too I guess, but not just that. For everything. For…being there, for getting me out of Hell. For…for everything, Cas.”

Castiel smiled appreciatively as Dean moved to sit in his lap.  
They kissed again until Dean was panting from the limitations of his human need for air, and Castiel was full to bursting with a desire he’d never before experienced.

“I am so glad I found you,” Castiel murmured as Dean caught his breath. Dean’s soft smile answered as Castiel began to unbutton Dean’s shirt.

“I’ve felt you in my mind for so long. What do you think of letting me feel your body too?” Castiel suggested.

“That,” Dean said with a devilish grin as he began to work at loosening Cas’ tie, “Sounds really fucking awesome.”

 

Dean tugged him towards the bedroom, where he shucked off Cas’ trench coat and suit jacket, slowing when he got to Cas’ buttondown.

He undid a button as he pulled away tie he’d undone, letting it slither to the floor from his fingers.

“You haven’t done this before, have you?” Dean asked.

“Once. But Dean, that was not like this, at all,” Cas replied, giving a sheepish smile. In the half-light it looked to Dean like he might have flushed a little.

“Hey, it’s cool. You’re with me now,” Dean said, running his fingers down Cas’ exposed chest. “And for the record, I don’t care how many people you have or haven’t slept with. You’re you, and nothing’s gonna change that. “

 

 

*

Castiel ended up holding Dean all night while the exhausted hunter slept. It was long and quiet, but he didn’t mind. He lost himself in the rhythm of Dean’s breathing and the sounds of his heartbeat, even finding himself imagining what the future might hold.

 

*

“Hey, Cas?” Dean asked quietly.

“Mm, yes?” Castiel replied as he stretched.

“What, uh, how long have we had this, telepathy thing?” Dean said haltingly.

 

“Telepathy? No, it’s not quite that.”

“Oh?” Dean sounded a strange combination of relieved and confused at once.

“It’s not so simple as telepathy,” Castiel explained. “I feel some, but certainly not all, of your emotions. Particularly the strong ones. Sometimes thoughts, too, but mostly emotion. It…it was overwhelming at first.”

“So, how’d it start?” Dean sounded legitimately interested now, and at ease. This made Castiel relax a bit as well despite the subject.

“I first felt it when I touched your soul in Hell,” Castiel said, a look of awe crossing Dean’s face.  
“So it’s really been since you first met me?”

“Yes. Your presence changed everything,” Castiel said.

“I’m sorry about that, Cas,” Dean said. “I know I haven’t always been easy to deal with, or—“

Castiel cut him off, experimentally engaging their bond, which felt open at the moment. He poured the compassion he felt for Dean across it, watching it roil like ocean waves as it met the self-doubt Dean held.

“It was not like that, Dean,” Cas said. “Your presence didn’t harm me. You made me what I am. I know you see only the destruction around you, but you’ve also done tremendous good. You always have been, and always will be, certainly to me, a righteous man.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean mumbled. “But there’s so much I fucked up, so many people dead, so many times—“

“I know. I know you can’t help seeing that. But—would you like to see how I see you? I can show you, Dean. If it could help, and you’re willing, I’d like to?”

Dean tensed, indecision making his reply stick in his throat. What could he possibly see? What could Cas see in him that the voices and faces of the dead that taunted him wouldn't twist for their own use? He sucked in a breath as he decided to take the plunge. He owed Cas that much, didn’t he? To at least try?

“Yeah, okay. Go for it.” He braced for an onslaught that after a few seconds, he realized wasn’t coming. Was Cas even sending it?  
Then he recognized a quiet flow of warmth that began as a barely perceptible trickle into his consciousness. The trick grew to a torrent, then an ocean. Sensations grew to include images as well. He saw himself, bathed in a golden light so that he seemed to glow even though there was dirt smudged about his face and in his hair—as the image solidified, he realized he was struggling to his knees at his grave in the clearing in Peoria Illinois.

“Wow,” he chuckled, at the idea that Cas had found him, in that state, of all things, so amazing. And amazing, amazing barely covered it, because Castiel sent with the image clear feelings of wonder and pride and compassion.

“So, that was the first time you saw my, what, physical body?”

“The first time I saw you in it, yes.” Castiel said with a gentle smile.

He sent the accompanying emotion along, watching Dean’s face and waiting to feel the reaction he gave. He was rewarded with a quiet amazement and gratitude from the human, and whispers of thoughts not quite projected that he picked up, faint echoes along the lines of ‘you did that, for me….’ He couldn't quite make out the words, but the emotion told the story in itself.

“I had to remake you, Dean. All of you. You don’t remember that though, do you?”

“No, not a damn thing,” Dean muttered.

“Do you want to know?” Castiel offered.

What did he stand to lose? If it was anything like the first memory Cas had showed him, it would have to be better than any possible recollection of events from his perspective, to put it mildly.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Dean murmured.

This time, Castiel projected a sadness and determination. Sadness, Dean realized, stunned, from Castiel that he had to part with Dean’s abused soul. The memory oozed with Castiel’s reluctance to leave his soul in his body, but nonetheless the angel set dutifully about rebuilding his decayed body with an incredible meticulousness that was borne of an unfathomably deep caring. And although Castiel seemed to try to obscure it, Dean could tell experiencing this level of emotional attachment had frightened the angel.

 

“God, Cas, you weren’t kidding,” Dean mumbled.

“No. Not about that. Never about that.” Castiel assured. “And there’s more, if you want it.”

“Yes. Sh-show me, Cas.”

This time, with even greater delicacy, Castiel endeavored to show Dean the soul he’d found in Hell. He started with the bone-wearying trek towards Dean, showed how close he’d been to giving up when the light of Dean’s soul had called out to him.

Castiel nearly flinched at the disbelief that Dean met this revelation with. Castiel replied with a mental insistence, in words, “No, you were my hope. You are why I survived.”

As the memory continued, Cas started to feel nervous about the time when he had first touched Dean's soul. At that time, he had felt an echo of Dean's pain, but even it had been blinding. He tried to shield Dean from that unbearable pain by focusing on the amazement and depth that had flooded him upon touching Dean’s soul.  
Dean now spoke haltingly across their mental connection. “No, show me, Cas. I want it all. Don’t…don't hold back, even if you think it will hurt me. I want to know.”

Castiel sighed and reluctant though he was, acquiesced. Everything. Dean now felt everything he himself had experienced. Castiel was mindful of the volume of information, keeping from drowning Dean in it although he didn’t hold anything back. He only worked to make the material a more accessible mental picture for the human so that he could fully understand it. Castiel kept watch of Dean’s reactions. His body tensed, shaking at the intensity of the experience, but his mind didn’t recoil. Castiel felt a sense of peace from Dean, an acceptance, he realized, as the human was finally experiencing his own delivery from 40 years’ worth of torment. He welcomed everything, drank it in, begged for more. So Castiel gave him everything, and let Dean revel in it all.

When they were finished, Dean lay trembling in the angel’s arms.

“Now you know, Dean,” Castiel whispered as he kissed the human gently, “Just what you mean.”

Dean didn’t reply verbally, but Castiel heard the fading echo of thought as Dean projected it to him. “Yeah, Cas.” The simple words were warm and laced with a sense of comfort Castiel could not recall ever having felt from Dean. He smiled as he held the human, who drifted away into the void of sleep.

 

*

“Hey, Cas? Wanna try something?” Dean suggested, a vague excitement in his voice.

“Certainly,” The angel replied, “Whatever you’d like.”

“OK,” Dean said with a hint of a smirk.

A memory surged along their connection to the angel, Dean’s memory of what to him was their first encounter. Castiel was thrust into Dean’s place, the sense of dread and indignation palpable as the roof of the barn Dean was in rattled, signaling Castiel’s arrival as the hunter summoned him. When the angel had entered, Castiel was met with the open-mouthed awe Dean swam in as he realized the inefficacy of the salt rounds that had pelted the angel’s vessel.

As the angel neared Dean, Castiel received from Dean something he hadn’t sensed himself. He hadn’t seen the internal conflict or uncertainty that permeated Dean’s version of the memory. Yes, Dean was very clearly awed and afraid as he’d remembered, but he was also mightily intrigued. What was this creature, Dean’s instincts had screamed, this terrifying, beautiful creature?

Yes, panic and anger had spiked when Castiel had dispatched Bobby, but confusion quickly replaced it and the quick defiance that was so characteristic of Dean. He heard flickers of thought that had spun through Dean’s head, the sheer adrenaline that had rushed through Dean when Castiel had revealed his wings. And with that, below the awe and fear, was a lust that had burned inside Dean so strongly that Castiel wondered how he'd ever missed it.  
The sarcasm that had followed was both reflexive, he saw, and a bid to tamp down what Dean had felt. Fear, anger, Dean had tried to hold onto those, but it wasn’t working. Castiel could see now that the way Dean had looked at him had not merely been bewilderment but also an appraising sort of desire. The accusatory questions had been as much Dean trying—and failing—to persuade himself of Castiel’s detestability. No. He too had wanted Castiel since then. Except the pain, the anger, the fear, the self-loathing; at the time, they were what came through Dean strongest, so they had been what Castiel had sensed.

Castiel sent his reaction: amusement and pleasure at the distinctly flattering shared memory across their connection to Dean. “You’ve always felt this way about me, then,” Castiel said.

“Well, fuck, yeah,” Dean chuckled. “Have you ever seen yourself? God, man! Your wings are incredible. It was like, holy shit, did this guy really just pull me out of Hell? Unbelievable.”

Dean laughed again, saying, “And you still are. Unbelievable.”

 

“Well, thank you,” Castiel said, an idea occurring to him. “You like my wings?”

“Yeah!” Dean scoffed like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Would you like to touch them?” Castiel asked, a hint of mischievousness in his voice.

“Yeah, if it’s cool with you,” Dean grinned.

“Of course it is,” Cas said. With that, he allowed his wings to materialize. They first formed shadowy shapes and then solidified into a physical presence; massive black wings with downy feathers sprouting from his back.

Dean’s eyes widened. “Wow…”

Castiel laughed quietly. “You haven’t seen them like this before, have you?”

“No, just the shadowy stuff,” Dean agreed.

“They aren’t of much use in this state,” Castiel explained. “Their utility comes from their presence in other planes of reality.”

“OK,” Dean shrugged. “So...” He muttered, trailing off as he traced a finger delicately down the long flight feathers. Castiel relaxed into his touch. He continued to stroke the feathers then suddenly without warning, he reached a hand to dig into the feathers towards the base of Cas’ wing. Castiel’s body reflexively tensed at this, and he gasped. Dean pulled back a little, concern in his voice. “Whoa, you OK?”

“I—I'm fine, Dean. I—“ he broke off, groaning again as Dean experimentally kneaded the base of the shoulder joint of one wing. As he recovered himself, he attempted to explain. “They are—ah—rather sensitive.”

“No kidding,” Dean grinned. “But you like that, yeah?”

“Very—ah—very—much,” Castiel confirmed, the words drawn out as Dean began to work in earnest, raking over the downy feathers between his wings.

 

Both hands were in Cas’ feathers now. One stroked down flight feathers, randomly sinking his fingers to suddenly tug at the down beneath them, the other kneading near the base of his wings. Castiel went slack against him, his breathing in quick bursts. There was no mistaking the sounds he made. Dean slowed his movements a little, wondering just how far he could push Cas with this sort of contact. He could identify the edge of unbearable ecstasy in the angel’s voice and face, and relished the thought of drawing everything out slowly as he could, enjoying every moment. He himself could barely stand the noises Cas made at the moment. As he slowed down, Castiel gave a small needy plea. “Don't, don’t stop.”

“Alright then,” Dean murmured, “How about I won’t stop any longer than it takes to get out of these shorts?”

Castiel nodded, sitting up. He touched Dean’s side, and his clothing vanished to a pile on the floor beside the bed, as did Castiel’s.

“Neat trick,” Dean chuckled.  
Castiel smiled as he turned around again so that Dean could go back to massaging his wings, although as he began to do so, it was readily apparent neither of them would be able to bear much longer without further contact. Dean spoke up, “So uh, how do you wanna do this?”

“You—I want you in me. Please, Dean,” Cas replied, groaning as Dean raked fingers through a particularly sensitive spot on the underside of Casitel’s wing.

“Ok,” Dean said, pausing momentarily as Cas shifted to lie on his side, looking back over his shoulder past his enormous wings, waiting for Dean to resume. Dean fumbled briefly at the drawer beside the bed to get what they needed. He handed Cas the tube, then he went back kneading at his wings with both hands as the angel flexed his knees towards his chest, working himself open with his fingers. Castiel groaned as Dean intensified the massaging he delivered, a satisfying sound that made Dean wonder why they hadn’t done this sooner, years sooner. He readied himself pausing only to plant an open-mouthed kiss on Cas’ lips before he lay on his side as well behind him. He eased in, Castiel’s feathers brushing his face as his wings flexed in a tremor of unrestrained pleasure.

“Oh, Dean. Yes…” Cas managed, breathless as Dean pushed himself in fully.

“Hey, I gotcha,” Dean hushed, groaning himself as Cas tightened around him, so perfect it seemed impossible. He began to thrust, establishing a rhythm that slowly increased as they rocked in unison, feathers and body heat and sound and pleasure blurring everything together. He felt the bond open completely, Castiel flooding him with what Cas perceived, the added input magnifying what Dean already felt himself tenfold. Receiving and giving at once, Dean lost track of time, of everything. There was just him and Cas, just now, just their bodies and the intangible sense of all the good he had ever known rising inside him.

“Oh, god, Cas,” Dean murmured, feeling his muscles tighten around him, shocks going through his entire being at the sensation. He launched it back at Cas, trying to tell him when his breath escaped him just how incredible it was. He received a knowing, burning, ever-mounting pleasure in response that only drove him on harder.

“You like that,” Castiel somehow managed to put together a coherent thought in his mind, which with the two brain cells that weren’t already scorching thoughtlessly with dopamine, Dean really appreciated the concept of Cas thinking of what he’d like, but at the moment he could barely hear even his own vacant thoughts as his world intensified, boiling down to just enough that he could continue towards the edge where he now hovered, tantalizingly close. Then it hit, blinding and ecstatic, a flood of such intensity that it wracked every nerve in his body, lit on fire in one sweeping instant. Dean shuddered behind Cas, who moments later did the same.

. He hadn’t been sure what he’d expected, either, but this was far and away so much better. Those thoughts died away quickly, as he could barely keep his eyes open by now. He felt Cas shift beside him, noticed the telltale glow that hit when Cas used his powers, and all signs of their undertaking were cleared away, he could tell without opening his eyes. Then Cas’ arms were around him, whispering softly in Dean’s ear as he kissed the exhausted man. Dean drifted off, trying to mumble a reply, but it wouldn’t form. Castiel did not mind, though. He held the hunter while his mind wandered through unconsciousness, quietly observing the flow of emotion as it came off of him. Castiel did not intervene, but rather stayed at the edges and watched, appreciating how Dean was so open with him. He did not try to shut himself off, but rather left the gates open, so that Castiel could have wandered in without the slightest effort and done whatever he wanted in Dean’s mind. He trusted enough to do that, a vulnerability so complete it was a privilege to be granted it. He had done much to this man, and yet he still deigned him worthy of this level of trust.  
Castiel vowed never to let such things mar their bond again. The thought of the things he’d done to Dean made him feel cold inside, a hollow of pain that even the hunter’s freely-given forgiveness couldn’t fill. He’d never stop regretting, of that much he was certain, but he was going to be here for Dean now until the end of time. Castiel held him close, pressing a kiss to the man’s brow.

This man, who had called out to him through all of Hell, who he had given up everything he had ever known for, finally called him his own.


End file.
